Stranded Out In Pegasus
by grnfield
Summary: Mitchell is in charge of the team and is guilty of losing Sam and Daniel during a traumatic mission. Sam/Daniel ship. Starts mid season 9. Rated M for later chapters.
1. Chapter 1

SOP Stranded Out in Pegasus - by Emma Nisbet (grnfield)

~#~ (Chapter 1)

"Now's our chance," Cameron Mitchell yelled to his team. "Jackson, you need to get dialling before that ship comes back and fries our asses. We'll cover you."

Daniel Jackson cautiously peered out of the tree line where SG-1 were holed up. The young man warily looked around to get an idea where the Jaffa were positioned before he announced, "Ready, Mitchell."

With that, the team moved out of the trees as a single unit. Sam, Teal'c and Mitchell each firing in different directions to cover the archaeologist as he headed straight for the DHD.

The Jaffa were returning fire mercilessly as they realised that the Tau'ri were on the verge of escape. The three soldiers spread out around the clearing to give Daniel a chance to correctly enter the address home.

Daniel pressed the final glyph on the address back to Earth and, moments after he whacked the red crystal in the centre of the DHD, the wormhole burst into life in front of him. He sent the code through with his GDO and shouted, "Mitchell, all clear."

Mitchell chanced a glance in the direction of the gate and swore loudly. "Damn it, the ship's coming back. Jackson, go - now."

Daniel started to move out from where he was crouched behind the DHD, but a sudden volley of staff weapon fire sent him scurrying back for cover. He pressed his back up against the DHD and began firing at the Jaffa who had him trapped there.

"Teal'c," Mitchell shouted. "Get moving before we lose the wormhole."

For someone so large, Teal'c moved with surprising speed. He ran towards the waiting wormhole, dispatching Jaffa warriors as he did so.

With a backwards glance he dived through the vortex, back to the SGC to request urgent activation of the MALP that they'd left parked deep in the trees on the planet. This would hold the wormhole open, ready for the other team members to come through.

~#~

Back on the planet, Mitchell shouted towards his final team-mate. "Sam, time to go. Jackson, you too."

He started moving towards the gate himself once he saw Sam start her run. He beat her to the gate and turned his back on it, keeping up his covering fire for both Daniel and Sam.

Daniel finally got free of the DHD and started making his way towards Mitchell, running and firing his Beretta behind him at the same time.

Daniel and Mitchell were horrified when suddenly Sam cried out and crashed to the floor. "Sam," they both cried out as she fell.

Daniel changed direction and headed for his fallen team-mate, firing random shots into the tree line as he did so. Mitchell offered covering fire with his P-90 and showered the area behind his two youngest team members with bullets.

When Daniel reached Sam he grabbed her arm and threw it over his shoulder, hoisting her to her feet as he did so.

"Sam, we've got to move," he urged.

With a pained nod of her head she said, "I know." She looked towards the gate, in the direction they were about to run and her gaze fixed on a point in the sky. Her eyes opened wide, and she shouted, "Cam, look out."

She tried to point at the death glider which was nearly at the gate. She was worried that Mitchell couldn't see it from where he was standing as it was approaching from the area behind the active wormhole.

Sam and Daniel started moving rapidly towards the gate as the ship started to strafe at the ground behind it.

"Mitchell, go," shouted Daniel. "We'll be right behind you."

Waiting until the last possible moment, Mitchell continued to fire into the trees. Once Sam and Daniel were at the base of the ramp he stepped backwards into the vortex. As he did so he could see weapons fire from the ship coming past the sides of the gate.

Daniel and Sam ducked momentarily before Daniel dragged the young woman to her feet and flung the pair of them towards the gateway back to Earth.

Unfortunately as he did so the weapons fire from the ship hit the DHD, destroying it in a spectacular display of pyrotechnics.

The gate chevrons lit up like a Christmas tree and the wormhole rippled and spluttered before returning to normal.

Committed as they were to their headlong plunge into the event horizon, there was nothing that either Sam nor Daniel could have done about it - even if they had noticed the wormhole acting abnormally.

They entered the vortex clinging to one another for support. The one thought between them - to get off the planet and back home, to the SGC.

~#~

Mitchell quickly stepped backwards down the ramp, expecting Sam and Daniel to come charging through the gate straight after him. He glanced over his shoulder and was pleased to see Carolyn Lam waiting near the base of the ramp with Teal'c at her side.

He nodded his acknowledgement to the large Jaffa and then turned his attention back to the active wormhole.

At that moment every chevron on the gate lit up and the wormhole collapsed and disappeared.

"No," shouted Mitchell.

Turning and looking up at the control room he shouted, "What happened. Dial it back, we've got to go back and get 'em."

"Delay that order, Sergeant." Hank Landry said sternly to the technician. He paged the comms system and barked, "Colonel, my office - now. SG's two and 3, get geared up for possible search and rescue in one hour."

"But…" Mitchell started to object.

"My office, Colonel…now," the General repeated his order. He then added, "You too, Teal'c."

Mitchell stormed out of the gate room with Teal'c on his heels, frustration evident in his every move.

Carolyn watched him go, knowing that Mitchell would do everything in his power to return to the planet as soon as he was physically able.

With a sigh she followed the two members of SG-1 towards the General's office. She had a feeling that her father would call her in before too long. Teal'c had informed the SGC that the team were coming in under heavy fire and to stand ready for possible casualties.

She'd been relieved to see that Colonel Mitchell appeared to be uninjured, but it was obvious that he was extremely worried about his two - now missing - team-mates.

~#~

Upon entering General Landry's office, Colonel Mitchell briefly explained that upon arrival on P8J-187 the team had heard staff weapons fire in the distance. It had been coming from the direction of the seemingly abandoned settlement that had shown up on the UAV footage. They had parked the MALP in the trees in a hope that their presence would remain undetected for as long as possible and had then set out to see if they could offer assistance to any previously unidentified natives.

After journeying a fair distance through the trees it became clear that they were walking into a conflict between two warring groups of Jaffa. It was initially assumed that this was a group of Free Jaffa attempting to subdue a platoon of Jaffa that mistakenly thought they were still fighting for the Goa'uld.

Teal'c identified that the opposing sides were in fact Jaffa from the minor System Lords, Ma'at and Ptah, and neither side seemed to be winning.

As they tried to retreat back towards the gate, the small group of Tau'ri were spotted by a group of Ma'at's Jaffa. The Jaffa recognised the uniforms of the SGC and set out to try and eliminate the team in the name of their God. Ptah's Jaffa saw what was happening and they too struck out against the Tau'ri, as well as keeping up their assault on the Ma'at warriors.

Therefore SG-1 had found themselves trapped in the middle of a war where both sides were also trying to eliminate them. They'd fought their way back to the gate only to realise that the death glider was waiting to block access to the clearing.

Mitchell knew it would take a short while for the pilot to get the small craft turned around and headed back towards them. They'd waited for the glider to pass over the open space before sending Daniel out to dial the gate. Sam had been hit and Daniel had got her to the base of the ramp before Mitchell stepped through.

There was no more that either Mitchell or Teal'c could add to the briefing so Landry dismissed the pair of them while he made arrangements with the search and rescue teams.


	2. Chapter 2

~#~ (Chapter 2)

Electricity crackled around the gate and the kawoosh of a wormhole forming disturbed the tranquillity of the night in the small clearing that the gate stood in. Large blue birds squawked their displeasure and took to the air, flying rapidly away from the now brilliantly glowing, event horizon.

There was a loud cracking sound and suddenly two entwined figures were ejected from the stone ring and were hurled across the clearing.

The larger of the two figures impacted with a dark coloured device connected to the large ring, while the smaller of the two humanoids landed in a crumpled heap beside him.

The chevrons on the Stargate lit up vividly, electricity could be heard arcing around it and the event horizon spluttered and died. As it collapsed, the electrical build-up around the gate jumped to the smaller device, causing it to explode in a plume of blue and purple sparks.

As quickly as the disturbance had begun, suddenly it was over. Silence returned to the clearing and the darkness of night once again blanketed the area.


	3. Chapter 3

~#~ (Chapter 3)

Back at the SGC a MALP stood ready. The plan was to try and reactivate the MALP that was sitting in the trees on P8J-187 but if this proved impossible then the second probe would be sent through the gate.

The gate was being dialled and Cameron Mitchell stood in the control room, impatiently bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Come on, come on," he muttered anxiously.

"Chevron seven locked," announced Chief Master Sergeant Harriman.

A collective sigh of relief was heard in the control room, a sentiment - thought General Landry - that was probably being felt all round the gate room too.

SG-2, three and a contingent of marines stood ready to embark once the MALP showed that it was safe to do so. The remaining half of SG-1 would also be travelling through.

The medical team had been assembled but were to wait until signalled before they travelled.

Carolyn Lam was among the medical staff who were suited up, ready, if it proved necessary, to walk into a combat zone to save their friends.

"Try to activate the MALP, Sergeant." Landry ordered. "Let's see what we're up against."

The crew in the control room clustered around one of the view screens, waiting and hoping that the MALP would begin transmitting.

The screen sprang to life and a lop-sided, black and white picture of a wood was seen. The MALP was sitting at an odd angle and Harriman reported that, despite the fact they had a good connection, it's caterpillar treads would not respond to his commands.

The decision was made to activate the second MALP. It slowly trundled up the ramp and was swallowed up by the wormhole.

A few seconds later it began transmitting and a scene of total carnage came into view. Jaffa bodies lay all over the clearing and there was no sign of life.

"Pan the camera round, Sergeant," the General requested.

Harriman did what he was told. First he panned to the left, where more bodies were seen. Then he directed the camera all the way to the extreme right of the clearing.

A gasp went up as the camera focussed on the plume of smoke rising from the wreckage of a crashed Goa'uld death glider.

"Bet that was the SOB who was shooting at us as we ran for the gate." Mitchell said grimly. "No sign of Sam or Jackson, as far as I can see, Sir. Permission to lead SAR teams through the gate, General."

"Permission granted, Colonel." Landry replied. "Bring 'em home safely, soldier."

"I plan to, Sir. Just as soon as we locate them I'll have 'em delivered back here, ASAP." Mitchell informed him, and waited to be dismissed.

The General acknowledged the young man, "Dismissed, Colonel. God speed, and good luck."

Mitchell gave a crisp salute to his commanding officer, then turned and jogged down the stairs to the gate room. He took his vest and firearms from the armoury attendant, then quickly put on the vest and clipped the P-90 to it.

Once he was fully attired the Colonel hopped up the steps of the ramp and turned to address the waiting military units.

"As you know, two members of my team are missing. The MALP shows no activity on P8J-187 and the Jaffa seem to have done a damn pretty job of wiping each other out. There's no sign of either Colonel Carter or Doctor Jackson, although when I stepped back through earlier they were both at the base of the ramp and approaching fast. Keep your eyes sharp for any clues to their whereabouts. There's a chance that they may be just out of view of the MALP camera although the fact that they've not made contact does not bode well for that possibility. SGs two and 3, you're with Teal'c and myself. Dr. Lam, you and your team will wait for us to carry out a recon on the area. We'll use the MALP signal to keep the wormhole open and will let you know when it's safe to come on through."

The doctor nodded her acknowledgement.

"Right," Mitchell said with an air of finality. "SAR teams, after me."

With that, he held his gun firmly in front of himself and marched into the waiting wormhole.

~#~

When they exited the gate, the SG-teams immediately took up defensive stances and spread out around the clearing. They encountered no resistance, in fact, other than the wind blowing around the smoke from the wrecked glider, there was no movement in the clearing that wasn't caused by a member of the SGC.

"ColonelMitchell," Teal'c called out. "The Dial Home Device appears to have been irreparably damaged. I would surmise that it was struck by airborne weapons fire - most probably from the death glider that sits in flames on the other side of the clearing."

"I agree, Teal'c. It must've happened after I came through. It was fine when Daniel dialled us out and I didn't see it get hit." Mitchell said.

"Agreed, ColonelMitchell," Teal'c replied.

"Colonel Mitchell," a shout came from across the clearing. "Over here, Sir. This Jaffa is alive."

Mitchell quickly looked at Teal'c, "Go, ColonelMitchell. I will inform GeneralHammond of the damage to the dial home device and request a Naquadah generator be sent through for manual dialling."

"Thanks, Teal'c," Mitchell said, turning away. "I'm gonna go and see about this live Jaffa."

Teal'c nodded towards the back of the retreating Colonel as the other man set off across the clearing.

"Sir," Sergeant Carlin, the soldier who had found the living Jaffa, addressed Mitchell. "He's badly hurt, Sir. He was conscious for a moment but not any longer. Shall I call the medical team in to see to him?"

"Stay with him, Sergeant," the Colonel ordered. "There's no obvious hostile force remaining here at present. I'll contact the SGC."

Mitchell stepped away from the soldier and spoke into his radio. "Sierra Golf Charlie, come in please."

"Receiving you, Colonel Mitchell," came the reply. "Sergeant Siler is preparing a Naquadah generator for you now."

"Thank you, Sir," Mitchell acknowledged. "May I request the medical team join us now, as a matter of urgency."

"Certainly, Colonel. Do you have injured personnel?" The General sounded concerned.

"No," Mitchell assured his CO. "…but we have found an injured Jaffa, Sir. He's in a bad way but I'm hoping that, if Doctor Lam can patch him up a bit, he may be able to shed some light on what the heck happened here. It's a mess here, Sir. There's no sign of either Jackson or Carter at present and so far we've only found the one survivor."

"Very well, Colonel. We're sending the medical team through now. Sergeant Siler is ready with the generator so he'll be following them through. We'll cease transmission from the MALP once they have all gone through, then the technical team can get to work hooking everything up. If we don't hear from you before, then I want you to report back in one hour. Sergeant Siler assures me that he'll be done by then. Is that clear, Colonel?"

"Yes, Sir," Mitchell acknowledged. "One hour. Message received and understood. Signing off now, Sir. Mitchell out."

Mitchell moved towards the active Stargate to meet the medics as they travelled through. Carolyn Lam was the first through and Mitchell held out a hand to steady her as she stumbled slightly as she stepped from the vortex.

"Thank you, Colonel. Which way to my patient?" she asked.

"Sergeant Carlin is with him," the Colonel informed her. "He was conscious for a bit but as far as I know he's still out of it at the moment."

"Right, lets see what we can do with him," she said. "We can't leave until Sergeant Siler has finished with the gate so I've got to get him stable and keep him that way until we can get him back to the infirmary."

"We need to speak to him." Mitchell reminded her. "He might be the only person here who knows what happened to Carter and Jackson."

"With all due respect, I know that, Sir...but he's still my patient. Now let me take a look at him." She looked sternly at the Colonel who shrugged and moved aside to let her past.

The doctor dropper to her knees beside the wounded warrior. Sergeant Carlin had covered the large man in a space blanket to preserve as much of his body heat as possible on the damp ground.

"He's not regained consciousness at all, Doctor," he reported. "I've not moved him at all, just covered him up the best I could. He's got a staff blast to his lower back and a nasty looking lump on his head."

Lam nodded, "Very good, Sergeant. Kelly, let's get an IV setup with fluids. I need to examine his symbiote before we do anything else."

Kelly Barnes knelt down and took hold of one of the large man's arms. She started cleaning up the area where the intravenous drip was to be inserted and tried to keep herself out of the other doctor's way as much as possible.

Dr. Lam pulled back the space blanket and peeled away the armour covering the Jaffa's abdomen. When the X shaped opening was fully visible she slowly worked a gloved hand inside.

Mitchell wrinkled his nose in disgust, "I never will get used to that. So can you tell how the littl'un's doing?"

Carolyn gently examined the small creature before answering, "Not well I fear, Colonel. The symbiote is alive but isn't particularly responsive."

She carefully removed her hand and gasped when she discovered that her glove was covered in scarlet coloured blood.

"That can't be a good sign," Mitchell pointed out.

"No, Colonel, it's not," she informed him. "That blood isn't from the symbiote, it's from the Jaffa. I'd say some of the energy from the staff blast must have caused internal damage to his symbiote pouch. I'll give him a massive dose of Tretonin to get his immune system kick-started and start him on IV antibiotics. I'm going to have to remove the symbiote and pack the pouch with wadding to reduce the bleeding. I really don't want to have to open him up here to try and attempt a repair. I'll monitor him and hopefully that will suffice until I can get him to the OR. His chances of survival will be far greater if he's operated on back at the SGC."

"Agreed, keep me updated," Mitchell requested. "…and let me know if he comes round. We still need to know what happened here. I'm going to see how Sergeant Siler is getting along and see if Teal'c has found anything yet."


	4. Chapter 4

~#~ (Chapter 4)

It turned out that Sergeant Siler was doing extremely well in connecting the Naquadah generator to the gate.

"Another ten minutes and we'll be good to go, Sir," he reported.

"Great to hear, Sergeant. We've got a wounded Jaffa to deliver to the infirmary ASAP." Mitchell advised.

"Very good, Sir," replied the Sergeant. "If you could rustle me up a few burly marines to turn the gate it'll be done all the faster."

"Will do, Sergeant." Mitchell replied. He turned and scanned the clearing, before shouting, "Yo, Jones, Maybury, and you Peters. Report to Sergeant Siler. He needs some muscle to use on the gate."

He turned back to Siler and grinned, "Good enough, Sergeant?"

Siler nodded, "Thank you, Colonel. That'll do fine."

Mitchell looked across the clearing and located Teal'c's stooped form. The Jaffa was roughly in the middle of the clearing and seemed to be intently studying something on the ground.

Mitchell walked over and bent down next to his large team-mate.

"What you got, Teal'c?" he asked.

"I believe I have located the area where ColonelCarter was hit by the staff weapon blast," the Jaffa solemnly informed him. "I fear you may be unaware of how much damage was caused when she was struck. It seems that ColonelCarter was unable to bear weight on her right leg in any useful manner. DanielJackson seems to have been carrying most of her weight when he met up with her here."

Teal'c pointed to a spot a few yards closer to the DHD. "I located ColonelCarter's radio transmitter in the mud here. It must have been dislodged when DanielJackson lifter her from the ground."

"I knew she was hit, but I couldn't tell how bad." Mitchell told him. "Jackson got to her pretty quick and it was taking all my concentration to cover the pair of 'em. They were comin' at me fast and were at the bottom of the steps when that damn ship came back."

"I will endeavour to look closer to the gate, ColonelMitchell, and will communicate any findings to you shortly." Teal'c bowed his head and turned his attention back to the disturbed ground.

"You do that, Big Guy," Mitchell agreed. "Siler'll be ready to test the gate any minute and I need you to accompany our Jaffa 'friend' back through the gate with Doctor Lam. I think the good doctor might appreciate your presence when he starts to come round. I'm not sure he's going to be too happy waking up in enemy territory with his symbiote missing."

"DoctorLam is removing the larval Goa'uld?" Teal'c questioned, turning back to face the younger man. "That is not standard procedure."

Mitchell shook his head, "No, it's not. It seems that the staff blast he took damaged his pouch. The symbiote's pretty much out of it and she's got to stop the bleeding. We can't question him until that happens. That's the other reason I want you with him, so you can get him to tell us what he knows ASAP."

"Very well, ColonelMitchell. I will be ready. However, I think you will find a great reluctance in our 'friend' as you call him. He will not impart any information that he feels may endanger his God."

"Do we even know if his 'God' is still around?" Mitchell asked.

"I believe that Ptah was defeated, many moons ago." Teal'c stated. "I have no knowledge as to the location of the false God, Ma'at."

Mitchell huffed, "Well, if he's got his hands on Carter and Jackson, I'm gonna track down his snakey little ass and make him sorry he ever thought to mess with SG-1"

"Indeed," Teal'c intoned, solemnly. "Even if they have not seen him for many months, his Jaffa will still remain loyal to him. I do not believe much information will be gained from questioning our 'friend'."

"Well, Teal'c, then you need to re-educate him on the ways of the Free Jaffa." Mitchell informed him. "Surely he'll talk once he knows that the Goa'uld are as good as finished?"

"I am uncertain, ColonelMitchell, but I will do my best. In the mean time I will examine the area in front of the Stargate for signs of ColonelCarter and DanielJackson. Please inform me when I am required to accompany DoctorLam."

Teal'c bowed his head again and moved away from the Colonel, heading towards the gate.

~#~

Sergeant Siler soon reported that he was ready to test-dial the gate. He directed the marines on which way to turn the large ring to activate the correct symbols.

When the seventh symbol locked into place, the welcoming sight of the kawoosh burst forwards before the wormhole settled back into it's usual mirror-like state.

A sharp intake of breath was heard from some of the watching personnel. While this was almost common practice for SGs 1, two and 3, many of the marines and the medical crew had only seen the gate being dialled manually under extremely dire circumstances within the SGC.

Mitchell moved towards the MALP and activated the onboard camera. He leant in close to the device and said, "Come in Sierra Golf Charlie, are you receiving me?"

"Good to hear from you, Colonel Mitchell. Send my congratulations to Sergeant Siler, that must be the quickest hook-up yet." The General let out a short chuckle.

Mitchell looked over at Siler who nodded his head to affirm that he had heard.

"Sergeant Siler thanks you, General." Mitchell told the MALP. "Can you open the iris so we can transport one injured prisoner to surgery. I believe Doctor Lam has him ready now."

Sure enough, as he looked to where he'd left the doctor, Mitchell saw two male nurses carrying the Jaffa warrior towards the pedestal where he stood.

Mitchell saw that Doctor Lam was walking alongside worriedly looking down at her patient, while a harassed looking marine followed her. He was holding a pair of IV bags at shoulder height and the tubes from these snaked down inside the blanket that was wrapped around the still form on the stretcher.

The group stopped in front of Colonel Mitchell, awaiting his approval to step through to Earth.

"Everything OK, Colonel?" asked the Doctor.

"Contact established, Doctor." Mitchell replied. "The door's open the other end ready for you and your patient. Teal'c will be accompanying you through to the SGC and I want him to remain with the Jaffa at all times."

"Really, Sir, I don't think that's necessary." Carolyn started to object.

"It's not a request, Doctor Lam." Mitchell informed her. "Teal'c's going back with you and he's not leaving the side of that man for any reason until I say so. He's potentially got vital information about the location of two members of my team. Also, don't forget that he still think's he's fighting for the other side. These weren't members of Teal'c's 'friendly, free Jaffa, you know. To him, that currently makes us public-enemy-number-one. Couple that with the fact that you've taken his symbiote, he's not going to be a happy bunny when he wakes up. Now, Teal'c, please escort the good doctor back to the SGC and deliver her and her patient to the infirmary as we discussed."

"Gladly, ColonelMitchell." Teal'c intoned. "This way, DoctorLam," he said, motioning towards the gate with one of his huge arms.

Carolyn gave Mitchell a scowl that told him he was going to have some very large needles in his future. She then turned and led the way through to Earth.

~#~

Cameron Mitchell and SG-2 camped overnight in a small clearing, just inside the wooded area near to the Stargate.

They lit no fire, cautious not to alert anyone to their presence even though so there were no obvious signs of current Jaffa activity.

They kept radio contact to an absolute minimum but kept an ear out for communications at all times. The five men were all too aware that Sam was no longer carrying her radio. They hoped that Sam and Daniel were together and that wherever they were, they still had Daniel's radio and that it was still working.

The members of the one and a quarter SG-teams camped on P8J-187 were realistic though. They knew it was highly probable that neither missing team member would be able to use the radio, even if it was still functional.

~#~

After an uneventful night, the five men broke camp and returned to the gate clearing.

Several UAVs were due to be sent through. Once the SGC had ascertained that there were no hostile forces anywhere within the local vicinity, a bio-hazard disposal team was due to follow. They would remove the bodies of the Jaffa from the clearing and leave the area in a somewhat more sanitary condition.

A scientific team was be travelling to the planet at some point in the next few days. The DHD was to be studied, along with any remaining technology that could be salvaged from the death glider.

SG-3 had gathered all the enemy weapons together and had taken them to the armoury at the SGC when they'd returned to Earth the previous evening.

SG-2 plus Mitchell reported back to the SGC and were advised to return home. Mitchell took a moment and stood beside the gate, offering a silent prayer for the safe return of his two friends.

"We'll find 'em." Michael Griff told him confidently. He patted the younger man on the shoulder and motioned to his team to follow him back to the SGC.

Mitchell took a last look around the clearing, worriedly wondering what had befallen his two missing comrades, before he reluctantly stepped back through the wormhole to Earth.


	5. Chapter 5

~#~ (Chapter 5)

On a small planet, in a distant galaxy, dawn was breaking. A weak blue sun slowly rose over the horizon and illuminated the clearing where two still figures lay on dew covered grass.

The scene would have been one the epitome of peace and tranquillity if it were not for two things. The first being a large dark scorch mark, radiating out from a recently destroyed, man-made device. The second being the condition of the two people lying just behind said object.

The smaller of the two, a slight, blonde female, had a nasty looking burn covering much of her right thigh. The flesh was angry and inflamed around the area of the burn and blood was oozing slowly into the material of the trousers surrounding it.

The larger of the two humans was pressed tightly against the back of the destroyed device. He was slumped on his right hand side with his arm lying at an unnatural angle beneath him. He had a large gash in his hairline from which blood was flowing freely and his broken glasses lay on the ground a few feet away.

~#~

A little over an hour later the feebly blue sun was followed by another. This was a huge fiery golden orb, much bigger and brighter than it's comrade. It bathed the planet in it's warm, golden glow and chased away the cold and damp of the night.

The sudden warmth caused one of the figures in the clearing to begin to stir.

The smaller of them attempted to roll onto her back but found the movement hindered by the large pack on her back. She let out a pained yelp as her injured leg made contact with the ground and she sat up rapidly.

The young woman shrugged off her pack and carefully moved her leg to a position where the damage was touching as little of anything as possible. She unclipped the P-90 from it's place on her vest, lay it on the ground next to her pack and checked over the rest of her body for wounds. She breathed a small sigh of relief when she found that her leg was by far the worst of her injuries. A few bumps and scrapes were evident and her hands were a little unsteady - possibly shock or a result of blood loss - she thought to herself.

She looked up into the sky to try to judge the time of day. As she looked up and caught sight of the second sun she gasped, where was she? What had happened? How had she got to wherever she was?

She thought back. She could remember running through the Jaffa battlefield and getting shot by the staff weapon. Daniel had run out and grabbed her when she'd fallen and the two had run for the gate, hurtling through it moments after Colonel Mitchell.

"Teal'c? Cam?" she shouted, frantically looking around. "Daniel?"

She turned her head from side to side, looking for any sign of her team-mates. When she caught sight of the figure behind her she cried out, "Daniel, Oh God, Daniel."

Using only her good leg and her arms she quickly scooted closer to him, gasping out in pain when the move jarred her wounded leg. She breathed deeply and closed her eyes, waiting for the pain to ease.

When she felt able to, she took an appraising look over the inert form of Daniel. She held a shaky hand out to his neck and was relieved to feel a strong, regular pulse.

Being careful not to move him at all, she reached over and fished the first aid kit out of the pack on his back.

She took out a morphine injection and jabbed it into her own leg before unwrapping a pressure dressing and binding it tightly over the gash on Daniel's head.

Being mindful of his neck and obviously damaged shoulder, she gently checked the archaeologist over for any further injuries.

Finding nothing urgent, and unwilling to risk anything else until her regained consciousness, she covered him carefully in a space blanket and set about tending to the burn on her own leg.

The morphine was keeping the pain at an aching throb, allowing her a little movement for examining the injury. Although the damage was mainly across the back of her thigh she could see most of the affected area and could see that most of the wound had been cauterised - a usual characteristic of staff weapons fire. The flesh on the area nearest her hip had been torn open, presumably during the headlong charge through the gate and the subsequent impact with the ground on the other side. She gritted her teeth and stifled a scream as she sprayed the area liberally with antiseptic spray.

While waiting for the associated numbing effect of the spray to kick in she realised that after finding Daniel she'd immediately focussed her attention on him and had forgotten that Mitchell had also stepped through the wormhole moments before them. 'He could be injured and lying somewhere nearby', she thought to herself, '…and what about Teal'c?'

The fact that neither man had made contact in any way worried her, but Sam remembered that Daniel was still unconscious so there was every possibility that the Colonel could be as well. The other possibility - that Mitchell hadn't survived whatever had happened to them - was one that Sam wasn't even going to contemplate.

Teal'c was a different matter entirely. Yes, he was on Tretonin now, but he still usually recovered far faster than the human members of the team. He'd stepped through the vortex a short while before the other members of SG-1. Maybe he'd gone to try and find help before the others came through, even now he might be heading their way with some friendly - or not so friendly - natives. Even unfriendly natives would be a welcome sight at the moment, as long as they were willing to patch up their prisoners before locking them up.


	6. Chapter 6

~#~ (Chapter 6)

The pain in Sam's leg had, once again, reduced to its now familiar throb, so she placed a pressure dressing carefully over the torn tissue and tied the material tightly around her leg to hold it in place.

Looking around from her position - seated on the floor - she could see no sign of either Colonel Mitchell or Teal'c. With a grimace she realised that she was going to have to stand up to get a better view of the clearing.

Looking for a stout stick that she could use to help herself up, she noticed Daniel's glasses, lying on the grass. She picked them up and saw that both lenses were smashed.

"Oh, Daniel," she murmured. "I hope Cam's still got your spare pair in his pack when I find him. General O'Neill won't like it if he hasn't. You remember how he always used to keep your spare pair for when your current one's got broken, he always used to hate it when you had to wander around, unable to see properly. Please wake up, Daniel, so I know you're alright. I really want to look at that shoulder too but I don't dare try and move you until you wake up. I'm going to try and find the Colonel now. Hopefully either he, or Teal'c, will have a clue where we are. I guess you dialled wrong with all the chaos going on around you. Still at least wherever we are seems to have a reasonable atmosphere and a similar gravity to Earth. I guess it could have been worse."

Sam stroked her fingers gently down his cheek, hoping for a vague sign that he might be waking, but saw none. She sighed and stroked his face one last time before resuming her attempt to rise to her feet.

Finding no sticks to aid her in getting vertical, she decided to use the DHD instead. She dragged herself past the motionless body of Daniel and reached up with her arms to grip the top of the device.

Gritting her teeth, she pulled herself up onto her left leg. She felt a couple of moments of dizziness and disorientation after the manoeuvre but was glad when this soon passed.

Carefully she put her right foot down on the ground but didn't chance resting any weight on it.

As she looked down at the dial home device that she was leaning on, she saw with dismay that it had been almost completely destroyed by what looked like an internal explosion. Even through the damage she could tell that this wasn't a standard Milky Way style DHD.

She looked over at the gate for the first time since she'd regained consciousness and was stunned to see that the gate looked completely different to how she was expecting. The gate that she was facing had iridescent blue chevrons and unfamiliar symbols representing the constellations - a Pegasus Galaxy gate.

"Oh, Daniel, I'm sorry I doubted you," she murmured. "This is much, much more than a case of misdialling. There's no way you could have dialled us here - no way at all."

Keeping a firm grip on the DHD, Sam carefully turned around. She scanned the clearing with her eyes she ascertained that neither Colonel Mitchell nor Teal'c were anywhere in sight and, in fact, there was no sign that they ever had been.

From this position the young woman could also see the extent of the damage that the exploding DHD had caused. The grass was scorched and large chunks of destroyed DHD casing were imbedded in the ground. She exhaled deeply and sent a silent prayer of thanks that both her and Daniel were behind the device when it blew. Had either of them been in front of it then they would have almost certainly perished.

Sam noticed slight movements coming from Daniel and realised that he was starting to show signs of distress, hopefully, she thought, prior to regaining consciousness.

Carefully she hopped nearer to him and lowered herself to the ground as close to him as she could. She knew he'd be in extreme pain when he finally came round, but due to his head injury she couldn't administer any morphine until she'd assessed his mental functions.

She stroked his face and murmured gently to him as he gradually showed more signs of life. She was determined to let him know she was there before he fully awoke as she was all too aware of the vulnerability that her injury caused her. Should he lash out when the pain hit him, not realising that it was her sitting with him, he could easily hurt her further.

She knew that she'd be needed to hold him still before too long and was trying to prepare herself mentally for this as well as trying to keep the pair of them calm in the best way she could think of.


	7. Chapter 7

~#~ (Chapter 7)

The tactic obviously worked as the first thing that Daniel became aware of, on regaining consciousness, was Sam's gentle caress on his face.

He lay still for a moment, blinking rapidly, in the bright sunlight. Sam noticed almost immediately and lowered her face until she was at eye level with him.

"Hey, it's good to see you," she said with a small smile.

"S…Sam?" he croaked out, confusion evident in his eyes.

Continuing to stroke her hand gently across his cheeks, she said quietly, "Yeah, it's me."

"Wh…What…" Daniel stammered and Sam felt the muscles in his neck bunch as he made to turn his head.

"No," She shouted sternly and clapped her hands tightly around his face to immobilise him. "Don't move."

Daniel froze at her words and looked worriedly at up at her with big wide eyes. "Wha…wh…why?" he whispered.

"You're hurt," she told him gently. "You're lying on your right arm, the shoulder is at least dislocated - if not worse - and I've had no way to check your neck while you've been out cold."

"Oh," he said quietly, then suddenly added, "Where's Jack?"

"Jack?" Sam asked. Daniel hadn't called out for Jack since the General's promotion to Washington. "Jack's not here, Daniel. It's you, me, Teal'c and Cam now. Remember?"

"Sam?" Daniel said, squinting up at her. He was blinking hard and trying to clear his vision.

Sam moved her face closer until it was just inches from his. "I'm here," she told him.

He blinked again and noticed the dishevelled look to her hair and clothing. "You?" he asked.

"Got away lucky, looking at you," she told him quietly. "Are you in any pain?"

Daniel closed his eyes and mentally checked for aches and pains. Eventually he said, "Head hurts…dizzy."

"I'm not surprised," the young woman told him, sitting back up and carefully stroking his hair. "You've got a huge gash in your hair and you've lost a lot of blood. Does your neck feel OK? What about your shoulder?"

Daniel closed his eyes again and Sam waited while he internally checked himself over.

Suddenly he started gasping for breath, "Can't…Sam. Can't feel…"

Sam's heart leapt into her throat, "What do you mean?" Daniel's one or two word answers were worrying her already and now he seemed to be telling her - what - that he could be paralysed?

Daniel's breaths were coming faster and more ragged as he started to panic. "Can't feel…Sam. Help, can't feel it."

Sam watched in dismay as Daniel started to sob, impeding his breathing even further. She knew that she needed to calm him down before she lost him totally into the throes of a full blown panic attack.

As quickly as she was able, she lay down next to him and put her face directly in front of his. She clasped his face between her palms and tried to persuade him to open his eyes. "Daniel…Daniel, look at me."

There was no response except more ragged panting.

"Daniel, open your eyes and look at me," she ordered. "…NOW."

The firm tone of her voice penetrated his panic and he squinted his eyes open and locked onto Sam's.

"Daniel, you've got to calm down," she said firmly. "Let me check you over properly. I haven't managed to yet and we can't jump to any conclusions."

"'K," he said breathlessly, trying to do what she asked him and calming his rapid breathing.

"Good, now please don't try to move," she asked. "I'm going to let you go so I can sit up."

"Sam," came the worried reply.

"Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere," she promised. "I just need to sit up to check you over better. Okay?"

"'K," he replied quietly. "…Sam,"

"Yeah, Daniel," she said gently.

He looked deep into her eyes, "Thanks."

"Any time, Daniel. Any time." Sam carefully released Daniel's head and slowly sat up.

She worriedly ran her hand through her short, dirt encrusted hair, fully aware of Daniel's eyes following her every move and gave him a small, hopefully comforting, smile.

She leaned down and stroked his face one last time, before moving out of his line of vision to check out the other areas of his body.

Through a matter of trial and error Sam managed to ascertain that Daniel had full feeling in all his lower regions and also in his left arm. It seemed that in his dazed, confusion, he'd zeroed in on the fact that he couldn't feel his right arm or shoulder how he'd expected to and had been unable to get past that in his self examination.

Sam felt his neck as best she could but without medical scanners or X-ray machines there was no way to tell for certain if there was any hereto undetected damage there.


	8. Chapter 8

~#~ (Chapter 8)

Daniel had lain quietly while Sam carried out her examination of his body. She looked into his eyes with consternation at his silence - this wasn't the Daniel that she knew and loved.

"Sam," he looked up at her. "What's wrong?"

She ran her fingers through his blood encrusted hair, carefully avoiding the bandage that she'd put there earlier.

"You're hurt, remember?" 'Please remember,' she pleaded to herself.

"Head hurts," he said.

Sam shook her head sadly. "I know, Daniel. I'm sorry."

"You OK?" he asked.

"Yeah, Daniel. I'm fine," she replied, feeling substantially less than fine but, realising that Daniel's mind was obviously still not firing on all cylinders, didn't try to explain again.

"Tired, Sam," he told her. "Can't stay up any more. Going to bed now."

Sam watched in horror as Daniel threw his left arm over himself and he successfully rolled himself onto his front before she managed to grab him.

As his left arm touched the floor he tried to lever himself up. This movement released the pressure on his previously compressed right arm and he screamed in pain before collapsing to the dirt.

"Jack," he screamed. "Jack, help me."

Sam's heart plummeted when she heard this shriek. She gently helped the traumatised archaeologist to roll onto his, uninjured, left hand side. He instinctively tried to curl into a ball, away from the pain, but this just jarred his shoulder even more.

Sam tried her hardest to hold him still but the pain fuelled adrenalin in his system was making him even stronger than normal. She finally managed to roll him onto his back, with him fighting her all the way, and ended up sitting on his legs with both her arms holding his left arm and shoulder down to the ground.

"Jack," he sobbed. "Jack…Help me."

"Daniel, Daniel listen to me." Sam tried to get through to him, speaking slowly, with her mouth close to his ear. "You've got to stop this. Daniel, you've got to keep still."

Daniel's energy levels had been severely depleted in his tussle with Sam and he lay still, rocking his head from side to side and sobbing quietly to himself. Every now and then Sam could feel him try to raise his left arm in an attempt to rise but these attempts grew weaker every time his energy reserves waned further.

Sam was shaking from the strain of holding her team-mate down and the pain in her leg had escalated from a throb to a sharp, stabbing burn.

Suddenly, and without warning, Daniel opened his eyes wide and looked straight into the eyes of the young woman sitting on him.

"Sam?" he questioned. "What's wrong?"

"Oh, Daniel. I'm sorry," she sobbed. "You're hurt. Please, please, don't move. I can't fight you any longer. Please, please, keep still."

"Sam, don't cry. Please, don't cry. I'll keep still, I promise I will." Daniel said. He released all the tension in his left arm so that it was lying limply by his side.

She looked doubtfully down at it, then back up at his face. For the time being, a totally lucid Daniel was looking back at her. How long the lucidity would last was anyone's guess.

She sighed, "Right, I'm going to get off you now. Don't move…at all." She stressed the 'at all.'

"I won't move, Sam. I promise," he assured her again.

Sam carefully clambered off her team-mate, wincing hard when she moved her injured leg.

Daniel noticed immediately, "Sam, you're hurt," he cried out. "What happened?"

Sam looked at him, straightening her right leg out in front of her. "Staff blast. What do you remember?"

"Everything's a jumble," he answered. "I'm not sure where everything fits together. Where's Jack?"

Sam sighed and rubbed her eyes - confused Daniel was making a comeback.

"Jack?" she replied. "Jack's not here, Daniel, he's in Washington. We were off-world with Cam and Teal'c - remember? Jack's a General, he doesn't come with us any more."

"Oh," said Daniel. "When'd that happen?"

"A few months ago…" Sam answered truthfully.

"No, that can't be right. Jack's got to be here. Jack…Jack," he cried out sadly, frantically trying to turn his head from side to side, searching for the General.

"Ow," He gasped out as his movements shifted his shoulder slightly. He stilled his head but his eyes continued to anxiously search for a man who he wasn't going to find.

Eventually he obviously decided that Jack was nowhere to be found and his eyes settled on Sam's face.

She scrubbed her hands through her short hair and looked thoughtfully down at him. "Daniel, I'm going to give you a shot. Will you let me do that?"

"Hurts, Sam," came his pitiful reply.

"I know, Daniel. The shot will help," Sam told him. "Will you let me give it to you without fighting me?"

"Course, Sam. I'd never fight you," he replied, looking at her with big, innocent puppy-dog eyes.

"No, never Daniel," she agreed, hoping to keep him calm. "I know that."

She pulled a couple of items out of the first aid kit and moved his jacket aside to wipe his arm with a steriwipe. She picked up the sedative injection and looked at it guiltily. Truthfully she knew that Daniel really needed to stay awake and monitored in his concussed state but there was no way that she could safely do that herself. While he was thrashing around, Daniel was a danger to both himself and to Sam as well so she'd made the difficult choice to sedate her young team-mate. She hoped it was truly the right decision but she wouldn't know for definite until the usually gentle man, woke up again.

'I'm sorry, Daniel,' she said silently. 'You're going to hurt yourself more if you keep thrashing around. I've got no strength left to keep you still.'

"Shot going in now, Daniel," she told him, keeping her voice light.

"'K, Sam," he replied, watching her eyes as she administered the drug.

Sam rubbed the injection site and willed the drug to speed it's journey through his system.

A couple of moments later, she asked him, "You still with me?"

"Tired, Sam. Wanna go sleep," came the drowsy reply.

"You do that, Daniel," she said. "It'll all be better when you wake up."'I hope,' she added silently.

"Sam, whr's J'ck?" Daniel slurred, the drug gradually taking hold in his system.

"Don't you worry about Jack," she told him. "You just go to sleep."'Please, please, go to sleep,' she pleaded in her mind. 'I can't stand seeing you like this.'

"'K," he said and his eyes slid fully closed.

Moments later, all the tension left his body and Sam realised, with relief, that he was finally asleep.

She looked at his motionless form for a moment before allowing herself to let go of her emotions. The pain in her leg, and the mental and physical strain of the last few hours had compounded her exhaustion and the usually vibrant young woman was at the end of her metaphorical tether.

Tears flooded down her face and great sobs wracked her body. She pulled herself tight up to the left side of Daniel's body and clung to him, weeping profusely.

The emotional outburst used up the last of her energy reserves and she quickly fell asleep, still clinging to the sedated figure of her team-mate.


	9. Chapter 9

~#~ (Chapter 9)

Colonel Mitchell stepped back through the event horizon and walked slowly down the ramp towards Hank Landry. The General had greeted SG-2 on their return and had sent the solemn team to the infirmary for their post-mission checkups.

He gave Cam a sympathetic smile as the Colonel explained that there was no sign of either Sam or Daniel. Landry was already aware but let the young Colonel finish his report before suggesting that Mitchell follow SG-2 down to the infirmary.

~#~

When he exited the elevator on the infirmary level the first impression he received was one of noise and chaos.

SG-2 were being held in the corridor outside the infirmary by three burly SF's and the sound of deep bellowing voices could be heard reverberating through the hallway. A group of tearful nurses were gathered around a doorway a little further down the corridor.

Cam pushed his way towards the doors and found Major Griff arguing with one of the SFs.

"What in God's name is going on?" Mitchell questioned the older man.

"Can't you tell?" Griff asked incredulously, "Just listen to 'em go"

Cam frowned, "I assume this is something to do with the Jaffa that we brought back from P8J-187, Major?"

"You're not wrong there, Mitchell. And these damn Special Forces won't let us in to help." Griff said, gesturing towards the guards with a nod of his head.

"What happened to get Teal'c so riled?" Mitchell asked. "I ain't never heard him that upset before."

"Me neither," agreed Griff. "Don't think I'd want to get on the wrong side of him, that's for sure."

Both men looked at the SFs, waiting for an explanation.

Looking at the soldiers nametag, Mitchell asked, "Well, Chapman? You gonna tell us what's goin' on or we gonna have to bust our way in there and find out?"

"Sir…well…the ba$tard deserves it," Chapman began. "Broke free of his restraints and grabbed Dr. Lam by the throat. Sounds like he'd have broken her neck if Teal'c hadn't been there. Seems that your nameless Jaffa is now sporting a newly broken arm that'll have to heal the traditional way seeing how he doesn't have a Goa'uld in his belly now."

"Carolyn OK?" Cam asked worriedly.

"As far as I know, Sir. Seems she'll be bruised for the next week or so but no serious damage. She's in the room down the hall there." The soldier pointed down the corridor to where the nurses where clustered. "Teal'c sent her and the others out and ordered that no-one go back in there until he'd had a word with his 'friend'."

Mitchell exhaled angrily, "Damn him, the doc shouldn't have to put up crp like that. She only ever tries to help people. Let me in there, I need to find out exactly what's going on."

"I can't do that, Sir," came the reply.

"God damn it, be reasonable man." Cam's voice was getting louder with each word. "Teal'c's on my team - hell, he's all I've got of my team at the moment. That bastrd in there maybe the only chance we've got of finding the whereabouts of Colonel Carter and Doctor Jackson. I need in there…NOW"

Cam was shouting in the face of the SF by this point. Griff backed away slightly with a grimace on his face, feeling glad he wasn't on the receiving end of Mitchell's tirade.

Griff looked behind him and found Captain Pierce. "Call Landry," he ordered quietly. "Go, now, and tell him he's needed down here ASAP."

Pierce nodded and scuttled down the corridor to use the phone by the elevators. Very soon he returned and nodded to Griff that the General was on his way.

~#~

Mitchell had completely failed in his attempt to intimidate the SF into letting him into the infirmary. The other SFs had simply moved behind Chapman and created an immoveable wall of flesh.

Cam turned and punched the wall on the far side of the corridor. He winced as his knuckles impacted with the paintwork but found the pain to be comfortingly distracting. He reached back to begin another swing at the wall but was stopped by a sudden barked order from the newly arrived General Landry.

"That's quite enough, Colonel Mitchell. The infirmary staff have enough going on at the moment without you breaking all the bones in your hand. Now will someone tell me what is going on down here."

There was a loud crash from inside the infirmary and loud cursing could be heard.

"…or should that be what's going on in there?" Landry added. "…and where's Carolyn?"

"I'm here," came the reply from further down the corridor. All faces turned towards Dr. Lam who was walking towards them with an icepack firmly around her neck.

Landry looked at his daughter, concern clearly evident on his face.

"I'm alright," she said, coughing slightly. "This is just to stop any swelling and reduce the bruising as much as possible. I'm alright, really I am - just a little sore."

Hank gave the doctor's arm a comforting squeeze, the most comfort he could openly offer in the middle of the military establishment.

"Why did no-one call me sooner?" he asked.

"Sorry, Sir. It all happened so fast. We hadn't had a chance to call when SG-2 arrived. They were very vocal about not being allowed inside and then Colonel Mitchell arrived…" Chapman came to a halt and looked apologetically at Cam.

"And from that I can only assume that Colonel Mitchell was…more than vocal?" Landry asked.

"Sir, he didn't do anything," Griff started to object on Mitchell's behalf.

"Major Griff, it's OK. As long as it didn't come to blows - apart from the wall - then I'm prepared to let it go…this time." Hank said, looking sternly at the furious Colonel Mitchell.

"Thank you, Sir." Cam said, looking slightly relieved. "Can I point out that it's gone very quiet in there." He nodded his head towards the infirmary door as just the same moment that Teal'c wrenched it open.

The large man took in the scene in the corridor, "ColonelMitchell, GeneralLandry, if you would both step inside. I believe I have come to an 'understanding' with our guest."

Cam looked at Landry and motioned for the General to precede him through the open doorway. The General turned to the crowd in the corridor.

"SG-2, go and get showered and cleaned up. Your post-mission check-up will have to wait until later. Carolyn, you and your team please go along to the commissary and remain there until you're sent for. You, you and you…" he pointed to the SFs in turn. "Wait out here and continue to keep everyone out."

~#~

The General moved forwards and Cam fell in behind as they stepped into what used to be Carolyn Lam's pristine infirmary.

Landry stopped after a couple of paces and Cam gasped as he moved past the stationary General. The once tidy room was in total disarray. The beds had been pushed out of place and medical equipment was strewn around the floor.

Cam looked at Teal'c in amazement. "I take it he didn't take to kindly to being held here then?" he asked.

"He did not," Teal'c agreed. "However after we had a brief 'discussion' he came around to agree with the ways of the Free Jaffa."

"That's very good to hear, Teal'c. But where is our 'guest' now?" Landry said, looking round the devastation and seeing only their own Jaffa warrior.

"He is sequestered within Isolation Room 2." Teal'c replied.

"Why?" Cam asked, sceptically. "I thought you said he was on our side now?"

"Indeed, he does appear to be," intoned Teal'c. "However I informed him that DoctorLam was the daughter of the commander of this facility and offered to secure him inside for his own protection. The room is empty and there is nothing in there that he could harm himself with, should he wish to do so."

"Great idea, T. I don't suppose you've had time to ask him about Sam and Jackson?" Cam asked with a hopeful expression on his face.

"No, I have not. He became violent as soon as he awoke and it took a great deal of time to get him to this stage. I believe he would be willing to speak to you, GeneralLandry, as you are commander of the base. However if we could prove to him that his false God has indeed been defeated then he may be more forthcoming with information."

"I'll get someone on that right away, Sir." Cam told his superior officer and darted back out of the infirmary doors to set someone on the task.

When he returned minutes later he confirmed that he had set a couple of people on the task of finding out what they could about Ma'at and Ptah. He figured that if they could prove that both Goa'ulds were in fact dead then the reason for the initial battle of the following day would be null and void. If this was the case then he could see no reason for the Jaffa not to tell them everything he knew.

~#~

Teal'c knocked on the door of Isolation Room 2. He informed the occupant that he was coming in with General Landry and Colonel Mitchell and suggested that the Jaffa stand by the back wall of the room.

He then opened the door and marched in, followed by the two Tau'ri.

The young Jaffa was pacing the back wall with his right arm clasped tightly to his chest, the bandage around his stomach was stained with blood and looked in need of replacement. He looked over at Teal'c and curled up his lip when he saw the two humans. "Rhe'u, Tau'ri," he spat out.

"Don't worry, we weren't intending to come any closer." Mitchell replied sarcastically.

Landry raised an eyebrow at the young Colonel. "Didn't realise you spoke Goa'uld, Mitchell."

"Enough to get by, Sir." Cam shrugged, "Comes in kinda handy when Jackson's not about."

Teal'c strode purposefully towards the other Jaffa who seemed to shrink in size as he was approached.

"Mid'cha, Jaffa," Teal'c shouted at the cowering man. "While you are within this facility you will speak only the language of the Tau'ri. I should not have the need to remind you of this already."

The Jaffa recoiled at Teal'c's harsh words and only pulled himself up straight once Teal'c moved away from him.

"Whoa, O-kay. I think you're kinda scaring him there, T." Cam spluttered. "General would you like to talk to our 'friend' here or would you like me to do the honours?"

"I judge that you would get a better response GeneralLandry." Teal'c opined. "Although ColonelMitchell would ask pertinent questions I believe that his emotions are running high at the moment and his interrogation would not be entirely constructive."

"I concur. Colonel Mitchell, you can stay but I'll do the talking." Landry agreed. He turned to the Jaffa, "You, what is your name?"

The Jaffa looked from Teal'c to Landry and back at Teal'c. Teal'c raised an eyebrow and gave him a firm look that suggested he would take no nonsense.

The Jaffa took a deep breath and straightened himself to full height. "I am Rel'tor of Jov'uk. Husband to Ton'yak and father to Rho'dar."

"Rel'tor, I'm General Hank Landry and I'm in charge of this facility. I'd like us all to move to another room where we can speak to you in detail. We also need our infirmary back up and running. Are you going to behave yourself or do I need to have you restrained while we move through the base?"

"I will cooperate with you, I have no wish to be restrained further." Rel'tor said in a defeated tone. "You have removed my prim'ta and I believe the shol'va to have broken the bones in my arm. I am now kek and unable to withstand further punishment from your warriors. I will fight no longer."

Landry looked at the way Rel'tor was holding his arm - the Jaffa was obviously in a great deal of pain although he was bearing it well. "So we'll get one of the medics to take a look at your arm first, before we go along to the briefing room. If you attempt to hurt any more of my people then I will have you restrained and sedated. When you come round you will be in the brig and that is where you will remain until you cooperate. Do you understand?"

Rel'tor dropped his eyes to the floor. "I understand. I have already told you I will fight you no longer. I feel great remorse that I struck out at your healing woman earlier today. I was immediately aware that my prim'ta was missing and that I had been removed from the battlefield where I had earlier been struck down."

"Yeah, well luckily Dr. Lam's injuries were only superficial - thanks to Teal'c here." Cam told him.

Teal'c bowed his head to Mitchell in acknowledgement of the praise, before turning his attention back to the other Jaffa.

~#~

Landry spoke to Cam and instructed him to phone the commissary and recall the medical staff. The young Colonel quickly walked into Carolyn's office and used her phone.

The General then directed the two Jaffa into the main room of the infirmary and had Rel'tor sit on one of the beds to wait for the medics. Landry left Rel'tor under Teal'c's watchful eye and went to his office to write a brief account of the encounter in the infirmary while it was fresh in his mind.

Teal'c automatically started pushing the beds back to where they belonged and when Cam returned he helped to collect up the fallen equipment that was strewn on the floor.

To the relief of both men, a submissive Rel'tor remained seated on the bed the whole time they were tidying and by the time Carolyn and her medics arrived the two team-mates had got the infirmary looking vaguely presentable.

Dr. Lam looked extremely worried as she approached the Jaffa on the bed.

"Hey, it's OK." Cam said. "You don't have to treat him if you don't want to. Someone else can see to him, if you prefer."

"No, I need to do this. I can't expect my staff to deal with a patient who I won't treat myself." Carolyn replied. "Just give me a moment, please."

"DoctorLam, be assured I will not hurt you. I am ashamed that I was…afraid earlier. I did not know where I was, only that my prim'ta was missing. Without it I assumed that I would shortly die. Teal'c has shown me that it is now possible to live without a larval Goa'uld - that he lost his many years ago and he has explained this drug - Tretonin to me. He assures me that it is being used to free the Jaffa people which is surely a noble deed. If the Goa'uld are truly vanquished then the Jaffa will require this drug to be continue their existence."

Carolyn moved closer to the bed where Rel'tor was sitting and, with a little trepidation, placed her hand on the shoulder of his unbroken arm. The warrior stayed completely still, sensing that the petite doctor was steeling her courage to treat him.

After a few moment Carolyn let out a deep breath and dropped her hand to the bed. "OK," she said, back in business mode. "I want to look at your surgery area first. I need to change that dressing and I want to make sure you haven't caused any more damage during the fracas earlier . I'll take a look at your arm when I'm certain your abdomen isn't going to cause us any further problems."

Rel'tor nodded and, with a little help from Teal'c, lay down on the bed. Carolyn carefully unwrapped the bandage from around his damaged pouch and was pleased to see the area looking not a lot unlike she'd left it. Some of the stitches had pulled a little, hence the blood, but with another dressing applied she felt that they would heal if left alone.

A portable X-ray machine was brought in and Dr. Lam discovered that Teal'c had broken both the Radius and Ulna bones in Rel'tor's right arm. Dr. Lam decided that fixation surgery would be necessary due to the position of the breaks and the fact that Rel'tor had been shaken about a great deal since the bones were broken.

To allow the General and SG-1to speak to Rel'tor, Carolyn wrapped the Jaffa's arm in a cast and bound it to his chest. She then helped him put a scrub top on and trapped the arm inside the clothing. This left the large warrior slightly unstable on his feet but kept him mobile while it was required. She then gave him an injection to make him more comfortable and made arrangements that he be returned to the infirmary as soon as the briefing was completed.

~#~

Once he was free to leave the infirmary Rel'tor was escorted to the briefing room for the meeting with General Landry.

When the three men entered the room they found that the General wasn't alone. Bra'tac stood up and walked over to them.

Clamping his arm to his chest he offered a small bow to Teal'c as he greeted him. "Tek'ma'tae, Teal'c."

"Tek'ma'tek, my old friend. It is good to see you." Teal'c replied, bowing before moving aside to allow his mentor to greet Rel'tor.

"Tak'mal'tiak." Rel'tor bowed deeply to Bra'tac before swaying alarmingly. Teal'c placed a supporting hand under his left arm and lifted him back upright. He then pulled out a chair and deposited the young man gently into it.

Rel'tor sagged gratefully into the chair and sat cradling his cast arm. Bra'tac retook his previous seat so Cam and Teal'c both dragged out chairs for themselves and sat down as well.

Landry looked around the table at the seated men. "OK, let's get things started. Rel'tor, I'd like to start by asking where your allegiances lie."

Rel'tor looked from Landry to Bra'tac and then to Teal'c, unsure of who he needed to address. Teal'c nodded towards the General and Rel'tor answered, "Until today I served the God Ma'at. Now the shol'va tells me that the Gods have been defeated and the Jaffa are free."

"Uh hm," Bra'tac cleared his throat, and looked sternly at Rel'tor.

The young man looked panicked and replayed his last statement in his head. A horrified look passed his face when he realised what he'd said. "I…I…I apologise. Please forgive me," he stuttered. "Everyone knows of the shol'va Teal'c. The first prime who joined the Tau'ri and then set out against not only his own God but many others too."

"Do not worry, Rel'tor." Teal'c assured the younger Jaffa. "I do not take offence to the title of shol'va. Now that the Jaffa are free it is not longer a label to be ashamed of."

Bra'tac looked between the two men with a bemused expression on his face. He then looked over at Mitchell and saw the young Colonel watching the interaction with frustration. He noticed Hank Landry doing the same, caught the General's eye and nodded his head gently.

"Gentlemen please. Can we move on?" the General interrupted. "We're getting away from the purpose of the meeting. We're here to try and establish if Rel'tor has any information on the whereabouts of Colonel Carter and Doctor Jackson. Rel'tor we're hoping you may have seen something that can help us."

"Indeed we are." Bra'tac spoke up. "Rel'tor, were you aware that the Tau'ri were on the planet with you?"

"Master Bra'tac, yes I was. We were ordered to pursue the four Tau'ri of Earth, with the aim of capturing them alive if possible. It would have brought great honour to the System Lord that finally defeated the infamous SG-1."

"Infamous, I kinda like it." Cam said quietly. "Were you in the clearing with us?"

Rel'tor nodded, "I did not see Teal'c there though. When I arrived the Chappa'ai was already active and one of you was standing in front of it firing into the trees. Two other Tau'ri were in the clearing at the time."

"That would have been me in front of the gate with Sam and Jackson in the clearing." Cam told him. "Teal'c went through before us."

"It all happened so quickly, I was hit by staff weapons fire while I was near the tree-line and I fell to the ground." As he told them this Rel'tor's left hand automatically dropped to his abdomen as he remembered the pain.

"Please tell us you were still facing the gate and saw what happened." Cam pleaded.

"Indeed I did." Rel'tor told him. "That is why I do not understand why you do not know the whereabouts of the two humans."

"What do you mean?" asked Cam. "What did you see?"

"I saw one of the Tau'ri take a staff weapons blast and fall to the ground. The one who had been sheltering behind the controller of the Chappa'ai ran out to help."

'Now we're getting somewhere.' Cam muttered under his breath. "Yep, Sam took the blast and fell down, Jackson ran over and picked her up. I know that much, what I don't know is what happened after I stepped through the gate. They should have been right behind me. Hell, they were headed straight for me when I stepped through."

"Easy, Colonel," the General warned. "Rel'tor, please continue."

The Jaffa pulled himself up straighter in his chair and looked Cam in the eye. "Yes, this is why I don't understand. You went through and the ones you call Sam and Jackson followed you."

"What," cried Mitchell. "They can't have followed me, they never made it back here. You sure you saw them step through?"

Rel'tor nodded again, "Yes, I am certain. They went through together, at speed, just moments after the controller was hit by the blast from the Death Glider. The explosion was extreme, it was so bright that I had to close my eyes. Your friend - Jackson - was very lucky that he was not still sheltering behind it or he would have certainly been killed. When I opened my eyes I saw the two Tau'ri disappearing through the Chappa'ai and then they were gone. I believe I must have lost consciousness at that point because the next thing I remember is another Tau'ri leaning over me shouting that I was alive. The battle had finished without me knowing it…and I still do not know the outcome."

"My young friend, there were no winners in that war." Bra'tac told him quietly. Reaching over he placed a firm hand on Rel'tor's left arm. "You were the only survivor on the planet that the Tau'ri have designated P8J-187. This is why it was so essential that we speak to you about what happened there."

"I understand. But what will happen to me now?" Rel'tor was looking more than a little lost and gazed at Bra'tac beseechingly. "Will I be allowed to return home?"

"You are not a prisoner here, young one." Bra'tac told him. "Where is your home?"

"I am from Jov'uk." Rel'tor replied. "My wife and son are both there. My son is thirty-four moon cycles of age and I have not returned home for twenty-nine cycles. I have a great desire to return to see my son. I have received messages from my wife, Ton'yak, that he is growing into a strong warrior and I would very much enjoy seeing him again. I only hope that he wishes to know me as he was just an infant when I left and he will not recognise my face."

"You've been away from home for nearly two and a half years?" Mitchell asked incredulously. "No wonder you were out of the loop where the System Lords are concerned. Who sent you on this last mission? To try and annihilate Ptah's Jaffa?"

"We have been at war with Ptah for many years and have engaged in battle with his Jaffa numerous times. Our numbers were few as was true for the Jaffa who served Ptah, it was presumed that the final battle may be staged on Char'ok. If you speak the truth and I was the only survivor of the battle of Char'ok, then it seems that presumption was correct and I may be the last of Ma'at's Jaffa. Many of the others were good men, I shall mourn their passing greatly." Rel'tor stopped speaking and bowed his head.

Landry looked over at the cowed young man. "Rel'tor, if that is what you want - to return home - then we will endeavour to carry out that wish as soon as possible. However Dr. Lam called me when you left the infirmary to tell me that your arm required fixing surgically. You will need to remain here for at least a couple of days to allow the healing process to start unhindered. Master Bra'tac is it possible for you to contact the family of Rel'tor? To assure his wife he is safe and that he will be returning to her soon."

"Indeed I can." Bra'tac replied. "In the mean time would it be possible for me to escort the young one back to your medical facility? I do not believe there is anything more that Rel'tor can tell you about your missing comrades."

Landry nodded his approval, "You may do so, Master Bra'tac. Will you be remaining on the base for a while afterwards?"

"No, I shall return through the Chappa'ai once I have delivered Rel'tor. I have many people waiting for me as I left very suddenly when I received your message." Bra'tac told the General. "I will dispatch some warriors to Jov'uk to make contact with Ton'yak. Do I have your permission to return in three days to collect Rel'tor? Will that be sufficient to allow the bones to start to heal?"

"I think that should be long enough. The arm will still have to be immobilised for a while after that but there should be no medical reason to keep him here." Landry said thoughtfully. "Would you take him now? I need to get some of my technical staff in here to try and work out where Colonel Carter and Doctor Jackson may have ended up seeing as they didn't come out of this end of the wormhole."

Bra'tac raised himself from his chair, Rel'tor quickly copied and the two of them gave Landry a bow of respect before leaving the room.

Landry leaned over and grabbed the phone. He ordered Walter to summon the heads of the technical teams and have them report to the briefing room immediately. He then sat down to wait for the men and women to arrive.

"Sir…" Cam started, jumping to his feet.

Landry cut him off with a sharp retort. "Colonel Mitchell, sit down and wait for a moment. Now we know Colonel Carter and Doctor Jackson followed you through the wormhole we need to formulate a search plan. Let me get some of the technical team in here and see if they can give us a likely place to start looking."

"Sorry, Sir." Cam said, retaking his seat. "I suppose we now know they weren't captured on the planet, at least that's something. You're assuming the wormhole jumped somehow, after I stepped through?"

"That I am, Colonel," the General told him. "Hopefully the technicians can give us more of an idea as to whether that would have been possible. The other possibility that we have to contend with is that they may not have made it out at all. If they were in transit when the wormhole closed down then they may have been lost to us forever."

Cam held his hand as if to ward off the words of his commanding officer. "I'm not even going to go there, Sir. Last thing I saw, Jackson was unharmed but we know Sam's going to need medical attention, on her leg if nothing else. It doesn't make me feel much better knowing they could be lying, injured, on God knows what sort of a planet. At least if the Jaffa had them we'd've have a rough clue where to start looking."

"I know Colonel. But don't worry, we're not going to give up on them without a fight. If the techs give us some clues as to where Colonel Carter and Doctor Jackson might have ended up then we can start sending MALPs through this afternoon. Lets just wait and see what they come up with, shall we."


	10. Chapter 10

~#~ (Chapter 10)

Sam awoke after a couple of hours and, upon opening her eyes, was momentarily confused as to why she was lying on the ground, plastered against the warm body of her team-mate. Raising her head to look at Daniel she immediately caught sight of the bandage around his head and her memories came rushing back to her.

Carefully she extracted herself from Daniel and sat up. Her right thigh was throbbing dully and she checked the bandage that she had placed around it earlier that day. She was glad to see that only a minimal amount of blood had soaked through the bindings and that what was there was quite dry so had obviously seeped through a fair amount of time ago. She decided to leave the bandage in place and not risk disturbing her wound when it was clearly sealing itself up as it was.

Looking at her watch she realised that a few hours had passed since she had fought to keep stop Daniel moving and had eventually been forced to sedate the archaeologist. She knew that he'd sleep for a while longer due to the sedatives and she made the decision to set his damaged shoulder back in place, while he was still unconscious.

With that decision made, she raised herself onto her left knee, mindful of the damage to her right leg. As soon as she was vertical she realised that she really needed to pee. She knew from her earlier examination of the clearing that there were no large sticks for her to use to support herself so settled for carefully dragging herself towards the nearest trees on the edge of the clearing.

When she reached the tree-line she reached out to the first tree that she reached and pulled herself upright. The trees were quite closely packed together here and she had little problem moving a short distance into the trees, making sure that she could still see Daniel's inert form at all times.

She soon found herself a stout branch to use to support her weight and, looking around for any sign of life - human or otherwise, she carefully went about relieving herself.

Once she was finished she made her way back out of the trees. The going was much easier now she had the branch to aid her movements. She was glad to feel that the throb in her leg remained at a manageable level and that her movements had not restarted the bleeding.

When she got back to the DHD, Sam retrieved her pack from where she'd discarded it earlier and rested both it, and Daniel's pack against the back of the Dial Home Device. She rummaged through hers, pulled out her first aid kit and placed it on the ground next to Daniel's one. Looking at the kits, she thought back to the time that Colonel O'Neill had first insisted Daniel carry extra medical supplies - in addition to the standard field kit that Sam carried on every mission. It had started out as a bit of a joke with Daniel grumbling good-naturedly about it taking up space in his pack so he couldn't fit as much research material in. Jack had countered by saying that it took up less space than one of Daniel's massive books and certainly weighed less than one as well. He then pulled rank on the civilian and reminded him, "Danny, Danny, what am I going to do with you? I'd like you to remember that I am in charge of the health and safety of the whole team - you're all my responsibility. I'd also like to point out that you do tend to get injured way more than the rest of us."

Daniel had started to disagree but Teal'c had intervened and agreed with the Colonel saying, "Indeed, DanielJackson. I believe that O'Neill is speaking the truth. You do have a propensity for becoming injured, and usually in the most unusual of circumstances."

Sam sat on the ground and smiled slightly to herself. Daniel had continued to grumble about the extra kit for a couple of missions until it proved to be a life-saver when Sam's kit was buried under a rock-fall. Had Daniel not been carrying 'his' first aid kit then it would have been a distinct possibility that Jack would have not made it back from the mission. The Colonel's leg had been crushed by falling rock when he'd thrown himself at Daniel. The archaeologist had been moving out of range of the falling rocks too slowly for his CO's liking so Jack had taken matters into his own hands.

When they'd all scrambled to safety and it was discovered that Sam's pack was missing the contents of Daniel's kit had been used to clean up and bandage Jack's leg. The wound had been full of dirt and grit and the Colonel had been in serious risk of developing an infection because of it. Jack had been dosed up with antibiotics and pain relief and the dirty, sweaty team had eventually stumbled back through the gate to safety.

After that mission, Daniel had never complained about carrying the kit again. Sam was more than grateful for that now, with the pair of them injured and stranded. She knew that they potentially had a lengthy wait for rescue and the extra medical supplies would be more than welcome during their time on whichever planet it was that they had ended up on.

She gathered together the supplies that she would need to reduce Daniel's dislocated shoulder. Unsure whether a muscle relaxant would be necessary being that Daniel was out cold she erred on the side of caution and used it anyway.

Sam took her knife and carefully slit up the arm of Daniel's jacket. She then continued the cut across the shoulder seam and allowed the clothing to fall to the ground where the unconscious man lay. This gave Sam unrestricted access to work on the affected area.

Tentatively she turned his arm so the palm was facing the sky, wincing when she felt the crunch of broken bones in Daniel's forearm. She stopped with a grimace as she realised that Daniel had been lying on the arm when she examined the rest of him and that she'd not thought to check it over before starting the shoulder reduction. Mentally chastising herself on her lack of forward thinking she had a sudden thought that she was so glad Daniel was currently unconscious. She didn't like to imagine the pain that she'd be causing her team-mate as she manipulated his broken arm to reduce his shoulder. Colonel O'Neill had never let her live down the pain she caused him when she'd set his broken leg. The pair of them were stranded in Antarctica at the time and Jack had refrained from mentioning that he also had broken ribs and since they were rescued he'd always claimed he wasn't willing to risk Sam trying to set them like she'd done to his leg. Underneath the joking exterior Sam knew that Jack realised that he was dying in the ice-cave where they were trapped - he had tried his hardest to persuade her to leave him there. He had wanted to save her the pain of watching him slowly succumb to both his injuries and the cold. She knew she had tried her hardest to follow his orders but once she found there was no escape from the icy wastes that they'd found themselves under she had returned to his side to die with him.

Shaking herself from her memories, Sam scrubbed her hands over her face, took a deep breath and restarted the process of putting Daniel's shoulder back in it's correct position. Very slowly she brought his forearm towards her body then carefully rotated the arm in a clockwise motion, before bringing it down and resting it on his chest.

Breathing a sigh of relief that the procedure had gone smoothly Sam then set about setting Daniel's broken arm. Careful not to disturb the newly reduced shoulder she wrapped a flexible splint along both sides of the insentient man's arm from his wrist to his elbow and curved them lengthways around the arm to make them rigid. She tied bandages snugly around the arm to hold both splints together and then with as little movement to the arm as possible she folded a sling around it. Cautiously she raised Daniel's head from the ground and tied the sling around the back of his neck before lowering him gently back to the ground.

Looking down at her team-mate Sam was worried that when Daniel awoke he would immediately move and jar the arm like he had done earlier that day. After thinking for a moment, she pulled Daniel's bedding roll out of his pack, got hold of a long bandage and paused for a moment. Steeling herself for the pain that the manoeuvre was going to cause her, she carefully lifted up the top part of Daniel's torso and tucked the bandage over his left shoulder and under his right, slung, elbow. She then delicately lowered him back to a prone position, placing the bedding roll under his head as she lay him down.

Sam sat back down and gingerly extended her wounded leg in front of her. She leaned over Daniel and patted the various pockets of his BDUs until she located the archaeologist's not-so-secret stash of Tylenol. Quickly she grabbed her canteen, swallowed down a couple of tablets and simply sat there for a couple of minutes, breathing deeply while the pain in her leg gradually subsided.

Once the pain had abated, Sam turned her attentions back to the man on the ground beside her. She got both ends of the bandage that she'd just placed around him and tied them together. This effectively pinned Daniel's arm to his chest and would severely restrict any movement that he may try and make before he became completely cognisant of his surroundings.

Now that she had done all she could do in regards to Daniel's arm and shoulder, Sam turned her attentions to his head. She tentatively peeled back the bandage from his scalp but the blood immediately started to flow freely from the wound so she quickly replaced it with a fresh one and tied it back into place.

Sam wrapped the space blanket back around Daniel's torso, aware that his jacket was no longer up to doing it's job. It was only really covering his left arm and the left side of his chest, the rest of his body was only covered by his T-shirt and the sling.

When she'd finished she took stock of their belongings. She dragged the contents from the packs and set them on the ground beside her. Between them they had the two first aid kits and enough MREs to last about a fortnight - with careful rationing - Sam thought they could possibly stretch them out to last three weeks. She knew that Daniel carried a stash of powerbars in the pockets of his BDUs - as she herself did - but left the injured man in peace. Just knowing that the bars were there gave Sam some peace of mind in regards to nourishment for the coming days. Both team-mates had a couple of changes of clothing and a bedding roll each but unfortunately neither was carrying a tent - Colonel Mitchell carried the tent that he and Daniel shared and Teal'c always carried his and Sam's one. Daniel was, as usual, carrying a lot of books - he had both reference material and notebooks as well as his ever-present journal.

Weapons wise, they had Sam's zat, her knife and her P-90 with half a clip of ammo remaining. Sam retrieved Daniel's Beretta from the holster on his leg and sent thanks to the heavens that they still had spare bullets for it. She thought for a moment and realised that - apart from covering fire from Colonel Mitchell - both she and Daniel had effectively been at the mercy of the Jaffa once he'd holstered his weapon. She shuddered as she remembered vague flashes of their headlong flight into the vortex of the wormhole.

Continuing her inventory she noticed that her radio was missing. Mentally she kicked herself when she realised she hadn't even thought to try calling for help earlier when she had been searching for Cam and Teal'c.

Reaching over, she grabbed Daniel's radio and immediately tried to contact either of her team-mates. She waited a few moments before she tried again but there was no reply and with a sigh she resigned herself to the fact that her and Daniel were alone. Had either Cam or Teal'c been on the planet with them then they would have surely made contact by now, in some way or the other.

Sam theorised that whatever had happened to cause them to overshoot Earth by about three million light years must have happened after Cam went through the gate, but before Daniel and herself entered the wormhole. At least she optimistically hoped that it did, that gave Sam at least some hope that Colonel Mitchell had got home safely. She assumed that the massive energy surge required for such a trip must have culminated in the gate on this planet and therefore must have caused the explosion inside the Dial Home Device.

Digging deep to the bottom of Daniel's pack she checked that his zat was still in it's usual hidden spot. No-one could ever understand how the peace-loving archaeologist could wield a Beretta with flair but refused to use a zat. The gentle man always claimed that he was more in control with his side-arm and very rarely aimed to kill. He was adept at shoulder shots - both to disarm and immobilise an opponent - and also leg shots to take the enemy soldiers out of action. Sam left the Goa'uld weapon where it was hidden, knowing that it could be vital if her and Daniel were discovered by hostile forces at some point in the future.

Looking over at her dead-to-the-world team-mate she knew that they were sitting ducks should anyone challenge them at the moment. There was no way she could move Daniel in his unconscious state. Even on a good day she would have had trouble moving her much-bulkier friend - and this was definitely not a good day.

Slowly she packed everything back into the packs so that it was easier to transport once Daniel was back in the land of the living.

Once everything was safely stowed away Sam scooted closer to Daniel. She removed one of the powerbars from her BDU pockets and broke it in two, putting the still-wrapped half back in her pocket. Nibbling warily at the piece in her hand, in case it turned her stomach, she washed it down with a little water from her canteen.

After a couple of minutes, Sam was relieved to find that the small amount of nourishment stayed where she'd put it. Not having anything else to do, the young woman fussed over Daniel's bandages for a short while and tucked the space blanket tighter around him. As an after thought she carefully rolled her team-mate onto his 'good side' and deposited both packs behind his torso so he couldn't turn onto his back again. Once she'd settled him in a position she felt would be most comfortable for him once he awoke, she took a moment and ran her fingers through Daniel's messy hair. The tender gesture would have surely embarrassed the archaeologist had he been awake at the time, but Sam found herself gently separating the grubby strands while he couldn't object. The action proved to be soothing to Sam herself but also got the young woman wondering just what sort of a state her own hair must be in at that moment.

Sam's mind was wandering - she knew it and shook her head in an attempt to clear it. Her military training told her that she should be staying alert and watching out for hostile forces, the civilian part of her mind however realised what a futile gesture this would be with herself injured and Daniel in the state that he was now. Eventually she lowered herself to the ground next to her team-mate and settled herself down with her face close to his. Lying this way she could rest her leg, conserve her energy and watch for any signs of Daniel waking up - all at the same time. She rested her head on her arm and resigned herself to waiting for as long as it took for Daniel to regain consciousness.


	11. Chapter 11

~#~ (Chapter 11)

Cameron Mitchell was having a bad week - it was official.

The young man sat in the commissary slowly sipping on a strong cup of coffee while he pondered the sudden downturn in his fortunes. True, he'd been through difficult patches in his life before, the most notable of these being shot down over Antarctica followed by the ensuing chaos when his doctors told him that he would never walk again.

He'd got over that 'little glitch' far better than anyone had imagined possible. The very fact that he could walk at all was nothing short of miraculous, let alone that he'd finally recovered enough to continue his military career and had eventually returned to active duty.

Then, just over a year ago, he'd realised his one true dream - to travel among the stars - and had become the leader of that most infamous team, SG-1. Fair enough, when he took over the position he'd discovered that he'd actually only inherited the team designation and not its original members, but with a great deal of persuasion, and the unintentional help of a sexy alien woman, Mitchell had finally rebuilt the team to as close to its original specs as he could get.

Since then Mitchell and his team had travelled to many new and exotic worlds and met with all sorts of friendly - and not so friendly - alien races. The young man was the first to acknowledge that, yeah, there were some REALLY bad guys out there - the Ori for example - but he thought that surely it was only a matter of time before someone came up with a way of defeating them. Mitchell wasn't a vain man, in any sense of the word, but in his heart he knew that SG-1 would turn out to be crucial in the quest to vanquishing the Ori, not only from the Milky Way but hopefully from the entire universe.

Before he'd joined the team SG-1 had spent many years fighting another formidable enemy - a parasitic race called the Goa'uld. Eventually the Goa'uld threat had been eliminated and the galaxy had been freed from their tyrannical rule. Their slave race of warriors, indentured for life by the need to carry a larval Goa'uld within their bodies, was also now free. The Jaffa, who would forever be in the debt of the Tau'ri from Earth, were now busily setting up their own communities, forming their own system of government and finally living the life of freedom that all sentient beings so duly deserve.

~#~

Right from first thing Monday morning Mitchell's week had started to go wrong, and from there it had steadily gone from bad to worse. He should have realised things were going to go awry when he'd left his house to find that one of the neighbourhood thugs had put a brick through the side window of his car and stolen the stereo. He'd had to call Sam to pick him up and he'd left the car keys with one of his neighbours, telling her that someone from the repair shop would be over to collect them later.

When the shop had gone to collect the car they found it wouldn't start and upon investigation discovered that the wiring had been chopped when the stereo had been removed. Mitchell was in for a hefty bill and the car wasn't going to be ready until sometime the next week.

When he and Sam had finally got to the mountain they found they were thirty-five minutes late for their morning briefing and both ended up attending while still in their civilian clothing. Landry already knew the reason for their tardiness but couldn't help himself from teasing the young Colonel after his disastrous start to the morning. He'd frowned and scolded Mitchell, telling him that he was a disgrace to his rank and that he should be setting an example to his team and not leading them astray. Sam hadn't realised the General was joking and had tried to defend Mitchell - to a point - but her military upbringing only allowed her to go so far before she'd backed down, sat in her chair and brooded silently. Mitchell knew that Landry was only fooling around with them but realised Sam clearly hadn't noticed this fact. He chuckled silently to himself and settled down into his chair so the meeting could finally take place.

During the briefing Mitchell had been pleased to find that SG-1 had been assigned a simple recon mission to the planet designated as P8J-187. MALP and UAV telemetry had shown signs habitation but seemingly no signs of higher technology. The team were to visit so Sam could collect soil samples and Daniel could examine any settlements for information on the inhabitants. Mitchell and Teal'c were going simply to make up the numbers and to ensure the two scientists remained secure. Mitchell knew that Sam could fend for herself and Daniel had got much better at it over the years but both of them could carry out their allotted tasks easier if they didn't have to be looking over their shoulders the whole time. Knowing that Teal'c and Mitchell were watching their backs the pair could complete their tasks much more efficiently and the team would hopefully return home 'in time for tea'.

Mitchell sighed as he thought back to just how quickly everything had gone wrong once they'd stepped onto P8J-187. He remembered their headlong flight back to the gate and in his mind he kept seeing the wormhole splutter and collapse without ejecting his team-mates.

Thanks to their investigations they now knew that Sam and Daniel had entered the wormhole shortly after himself. Unfortunately that had opened up a whole new set of questions, the main one being as to just where the pair had ended up. Mitchell closed his eyes with a shudder as he worried about the state they'd be in when they finally arrived at wherever the wormhole had taken them.

~#~

Realising that he'd drained his cup, Mitchell stood up and shook his head to clear out the melancholy thoughts that were collecting there. He knew that Teal'c had been in touch with General O'Neill and had told the former team-leader that his two youngest 'kids' were missing in action. Mitchell had the horrible feeling that Jack wasn't going to be at all happy with him. When he took over the team he'd been read the riot act by the silver haired General about the care and feeding of fair-haired genius's and myopic archaeologists. The young Colonel had taken everything Jack said with an overly-large pinch of salt and clearly believed that the General was greatly exaggerating the 'trouble magnet' ability of a certain Doctor Daniel Jackson.

Unfortunately for Mitchell, it hadn't taken long for Jack to be proved right. Time and time again Daniel had got himself and his team into impossible situations, managing to end up seriously injured several times in the process. How Jack O'Neill had kept him alive for the past nine years was anyone's guess, Mitchell surely couldn't work out how he'd done it. Mind you, reading the mission reports even Jack hadn't always managed it. Doctor Jackson was the proverbial 'King if the Lemmings', and had returned to life more times than any other person known to man.

Mitchell now sorely wished he'd listened to General O'Neill's advice. If he'd followed Jack's strict instructions to the letter then there may have been some chance that Sam and Daniel would not be missing from the SGC today.

The young man knew there was no point mulling this point over and over in his mind. 'What's done is done', he thought, 'Now we've got to get working on finding those two and getting them back home - here, where they belong'.


	12. Chapter 12

~#~ (Chapter 12)

During his time at the SGC the young Colonel Mitchell had tried his best to emulate Jack O'Neill but in the back of his mind he knew that in the future, when people looked back on the history of SG-1, that Colonel O'Neill would be the remembered as the leader of the team. Oh, how Mitchell wished that one day the honour could be bestowed on him but somehow he doubted that it would ever happen. If the current situation didn't improve then the young airman had the horrible feeling that Cameron Mitchell would go down in history as the man who took over SG-1 and then lost half of them to some unknown portion of space, somewhere across the galaxy.

~#~

If Cameron Mitchell underestimated only one thing in his life then it was safe to say that thing would have been the strength of the parental feelings that Jack O'Neill still held for his former team-mates and the effect that their loss would have on the General.

Mitchell had never before found himself on the opposing side to the General and was unsure as to what to expect when the older man finally caught up with him. The younger man had successfully avoided the rumours about Jack's reaction to the news that Sam and Daniel were missing but everyone - Mitchell included - knew that Jack had jumped on the first available flight out of Washington.

Whatever the rumours, Jack was going to be upset with him for failing to protect his team and the young man was dreading arrival of his predecessor.

~#~

Mitchell remained oblivious to the fact that General O'Neill was in fact already inside the mountain and the young man carefully deposited his cup in the appropriate spot before leaving the commissary and heading towards the briefing room.

He entered the room just like he'd done countless times before but mere moments after stepping across the threshold, and most unlike his usual quiet entry to a meeting, he found himself hauled across the room by 185 pounds of pure and unadulterated, rage.

The young man began to seriously doubt himself when he realised that a man more than twenty years his senior had equivalently caught him off-guard and now had him pinned by his neck against the observation window. Mitchell was unsure of how best to extricate himself from the predicament that he now found himself in - he couldn't very well strike out at a General but he couldn't allow himself to be suffocated either.

Jack was, by this point, right up in Mitchell's face and was very effectively stopping the younger man from sucking any air down into his lungs. The first tendrils of panic that were nibbling at the young man's mind were quickly exhausting what little air he still had available to him and he was starting to get very worried about his immediate well-being. Just what was General O'Neill planning? Surely he'd let Mitchell go…wouldn't he? And where the hell were security when you needed them?

Spots began to appear in Mitchell's vision and morbid thoughts started running through his mind; surely this wasn't how he, Cameron Frank Mitchell, would come to meet his maker? Not after all he'd gone through. Not here. Not like this.

~#~

Salvation, for Mitchell, came from a most unexpected source.

"Well, well. What do we have here? Roughhousing? I thought the gym was the proper place for that. I didn't realise it was allowed elsewhere on the base, someone should have told me. I'd like to point out that you two just aren't entering into the spirit of things properly. Neither of you are properly dressed, there's nowhere near enough skin showing and I'll have you know that's the only thing that makes it fun as a spectator sport. General O'Neill…at least I assume you're General O'Neill; I think you've won this round. I think maybe you should let Colonel Mitchell down now, he's starting to look most uncomfortable."

Vala hadn't heard Teal'c enter the room and the young woman jumped when he appeared beside her. "I concur with ValaMalDoran. It appears that blue is not a good colour on ColonelMitchell and I believe it to be imperative that you release him immediately."

With an angry growl Jack released his choke hold on the young Colonel and, after ensuring that Mitchell was safely planted on his own two feet, let go completely. The older man smoothed out the front of the Colonel's now very rumpled shirt, then turned around, grabbed a chair and sat down heavily.

He squeezed his eyes with the forefinger and thumb of his right hand, before dropping his head so his hand covered both his eyes. He knew he'd overdone it by flying at Mitchell but when the young man had stepped through the door something inside Jack had just snapped. He stayed in that position and brooded silently with his eyes hidden in his hand. A heavy silence filled the room as Teal'c, Vala and Mitchell kept shooting worried glances at Jack. Soon they all followed Jack's lead and took their usual seats at the table with Mitchell still breathing a little harshly as the adrenalin started to leave his system.

Luckily for all concerned Landry picked that moment to enter the room. He obviously picked up on the tension around the table but chose not to mention it. Hank was sensible like that - he wasn't made a General for nothing.


	13. Chapter 13

~#~ (Chapter 13)

General Landry took his usual seat at the head of the table and Mitchell motioned to his team to do the same. Jack's face emerged from its hiding place to acknowledge the other General who nodded to him and then set about conducting the meeting.

"Miss Mal Doran. Good of you to return so promptly after we contacted you. I trust SG-11 were alright about escorting you back so early into the mission?" Hank knew that SG-11 would have been more than happy to deliver Vala back to the SGC and scarper back out onto a more routine mission.

The raven-haired ex-Goa'uld was a handful at the best of times and the other teams dreaded her being assigned to them for even the shortest of missions. The fact that the recently abandoned mission had required expertise that only Vala possessed had compounded SG-11's woes by effectively making Vala believe she was in charge of the mission. The young woman had previously alerted the SGC to a potential humanitarian crisis on a planet once ruled over by Qetesh and SG-11 had gone to investigate. They had been trying, unsuccessfully, to help out for several weeks but the locals believed that their situation was caused because they had offended 'the great goddess Qetesh'. They were terrified that by cooperating with the humans they would bring down the wrath of their God and condemn themselves to never-ending damnation.

Vala had been requested to temporarily assume her role as Qetesh and to persuade (or order if necessary) the people to accept the help from the SGC. Everyone at the SGC acknowledged that it was a little underhand but if these people weren't helped very soon then many of them would suffer greatly through the drought and subsequent famine that had befallen their planet and eventually they would all succumb to malnutrition and starvation.

Vala had jumped at the chance to help put right a wrong created while Qetesh had control of her body. The young woman held a great deal of guilt about many of the atrocities she saw while blended with the Goa'uld symbiote and Daniel had always theorised that that was why she was the outspoken person that they all knew, and at times loved.

"No, no, General Landry. Of course the boys didn't mind a bit. In fact I'd already spoken to the Qelation people and they will now be more than happy to cooperate with the lovely people of the SGC."

"Well done, and in such a short time too. I imagined we would have to be scheduling a return trip there for you at the earliest opportunity. I trust things went smoothly and you encountered no problems returning as Qetesh?"

"Not at all, General. They were extremely glad to see that I hadn't abandoned them as they had originally thought and wanted me to promise I would stay with them in the future. They kept on and on, trying to make me promise that they would suffer no more droughts or famines and I…well, I may have got a little flustered."

Mitchell closed his eyes in dread, "Vala...what did you do?"

"Weeell, I may have inadvertently promised that, once the current climatic situation has been resolved, you would be supplying them with technology to ensure it won't happen again…Oh yes, and of course there's the small matter that the SGC are working for their beloved goddess Qetesh and therefore would be more than willing to teach the people to defend themselves against any false God who should attempt to overthrow me…"

Jack winced when he heard this but remained silent.

Landry groaned silently to himself. Somehow he should have known that Vala couldn't have simply ordered that the Quelations allow the SGC to help. No, she had to take things at least one, if not two, steps further by promising them things that she had no right to be promising.

He groaned again when he realised that the only person to successfully excerpt any control over Vala was Doctor Jackson and that unfortunately he was currently missing in action. The fact that Doctor Jackson, and also Colonel Carter too were now missing was the whole point of this meeting and Hank realised that it had got effectively sidetracked before it had even begun.


	14. Chapter 14

~#~ (Chapter 14)

As was standard practice whenever the gate had failed before the 'experts' were called in. Hank summoned Bill Lee and Jay Felger into the meeting along with several of the other more technically minded staff of the SGC.

A very harassed looking Doctor Lee hurried toward the back of the room and started proceedings almost as soon as he stopped moving. "As you know, the planet where Doctor Jackson and Colonel Carter were last seen is designated P8J-187. For ease of speech the science department have dubbed it Ryton."

Standing in front of the clear bulletproof glass of the starmap, Doctor Lee used a blue marker to draw a ring around the dot on the map that showed the planet in question. "This is Ryton," he announced.

"…This is Earth," he drew around the spot that signified Earth.

"And this…is the theoretical route that Colonel Mitchell and Teal'c took when they travelled back to the SGC." He drew a line from Earth, across the map and joined it to the ring he'd drawn around Ryton.

"Doctor Jackson and Colonel Carter clearly didn't travel the same route even though we know they entered the wormhole a few brief seconds after Colonel Mitchell."

Bill paused and glanced around the room. Unlike his usual briefings where people sat around looking bored - or occasionally, in the case of Jack O'Neill, sleeping - everyone was sat up and listening intently.

"Due to the short timeframe it is likely that Doctor Jackson and Colonel Carter entered the same wormhole as Colonel Mitchell but we have theorised that the weapons blast that hit the DHD made the gate overload and therefore caused the wormhole to jump to a different exit gate."

Bill picked up a red marker this time and drew a rough isosceles triangle on the chart. With it's smallest angle sitting on Ryton the long sides stretched across the map and ended with Earth sitting in between them, where the bottom edge of the triangle would have been, had Bill drawn it. Bill then added a rounded base to the triangle leaving Earth clearly in the middle of the curve.

"We know the wormhole left Ryton and can only assume that it was still headed for Earth at the time. Assuming it jumped to another gate somewhere along the route, then this…" he pointed to his drawing. "…red area is our logical search area. You can see that I have marked out a small area past Earth for searching as well. This is in case the blast caused a power surge and the wormhole overshot it's intended destination, although dependant on the size of the surge I cannot accurately guess at the distance a wormhole could theoretically travel."

"Thank you Doctor Lee." Hank rose to his feet. "Now, Colonel Mitchell, Teal'c, General…" Hank nodded to each man as he spoke. "I have spoken to the president on this matter and due to the monetary constraints set upon us by our 'friends' at the IOA we are not going to mount this search and rescue mission from Earth."

"We're not?" Jack's head sprung from it's resting place in his hand and he looked straight at Hank. "What?"

"General," Hank said quietly. "You know what the IOA are like. They just see the numbers, not the people. They weigh up the costs of a possible rescue, against the worth of just two of our men and you know they're going to shut down the search. Aht, wait…" Hank held his hand up to cut off Jack's objections as the silver haired General opened his mouth to speak. "This is why we are fronting the search and rescue on…Doctor Lee, if you please."

"Certainly General. The rescue mission will have it's foundation on P7M-263…Here." Bill picked a green pen this time and drew a circle around a tiny dot. "As you see, P7M-263 is pretty central within the search area therefore making it an excellent place to base our search."

"I take it we've been there before?" Jack said, waving his hand vaguely around the room to express the 'royal we'. "P7M-263, I mean."

"Indeed we have O'Neill," Teal'c spoke up. "Do you not remember?"

"T? You'll have to jog my memory here big guy. I'm not as young as I used to be, memory's not all it's cracked up to be any more, I'm afraid."

"As you wish, O'Neill. P7M-263 is the planet where DanielJackson saw a most fascinating looking temple on the horizon and you accompanied him to 'have a look see'. While you were gone myself and MajorCarter, as she was then, collected soil samples from close to the gate but when you did not return by nightfall we became worried. We followed your tracks and eventually found both yourself and DanielJackson singing sexually explicit songs around your camping stove in a state of great inebriation. You told myself and MajorCarter that DanielJackson had 'touched something God damn good this time', and as I recall you were most aggrieved at being asked to leave the planet. You became most belligerent and told me that under no circumstances was I going to take your 'little Dannykins' through 'that honkin' great thing'. While I was attempting to converse with you, DanielJackson somehow managed to extract the Zat'nik'atel from my belt and proceeded to shoot you with it before he ran away shouting 'Ha ha, that's what you get for calling me Dannykins. Come and catch me Sergeant Slow."

"I remember that. Well up until he zapped me any way. Sneaky little b#stard wasn't he," chuckled Jack.

"Indeed he was. And after he ran off I was forced to carry you back to the SGC." Teal'c continued, "Regrettably that left MajorCarter to retrieve DanielJackson and she also had the unenviable task of persuading him that travelling with us was in his best interests. Fortunately within just a few minutes, DanielJackson became most affectionate towards MajorCarter and I believe she used this fact to her advantage admirably. I am most certain that since that day I have not seen feminine wiles used in such a way before the recent arrival of ValaMalDoran to this facility."

"Well thank you, Muscles. That's jolly nice of you to say so." Vala grinned and leaned over to squeeze one of Teal'c massive biceps. The large Jaffa inclined his head in acknowledgement but remained silent.

"Er, thanks for that reminder, Teal'c." Jack said, scrubbing his hands through his short silver hair as the embarrassing memories bombarded him. "Took both me and Daniel a looong time to get over the effects of that one. How long was I strapped to that bed in the infirmary?

Mitchell chuckled. Before he took charge of SG-1 the young man had memorised every mission report and this was obviously a favourite of his. "Eight days, Sir."

"Eight, very long days, Colonel." Jack agreed. "Eight days strapped to a bed while Daniel followed Carter around everywhere like some lovesick lapdog. I so got the raw end of that deal, ya know. Who knew 'ol Dannyboy had it in him, eh?"

Daniel had been more than just affectionate with Sam and the archaeologist had apologised profusely to the Major for weeks once he and Jack had recovered from the effects of the gas they had been exposed to when Daniel had triggered a booby trap inside the temple. Sam hadn't really been upset about being the sole recipient of Daniel's affections for the best part of a week, in fact she'd secretly found it rather adorable. She also enjoyed bringing it up occasionally when she felt the need to tease him though, and very occasionally she might also mention it when struggling to get her own way with him.

"From memory the planet was pretty much a dustbowl, with just a few trees placed around the gate to shelter it from the wind? That's the one isn't it?" Jack asked.

"That's the one, General." Mitchell replied. "Completely uninhabited and with a few tents set up for protection from the sandstorms it'll make a great place to base ourselves for the search and rescue. Everyone just needs to keep away from the temple and it'll be fine."

"Erm, excuse me." Vala held up a hand and waved it around to catch everyone's attention. "But why do we need to go to P7-whatever? I can't see why we can't just go out looking from here. We'd still be using the same manpower and at least here we've got running water and basic hygiene facilities."

"Miss Mal Doran, much as I understand your desire to be near the comforts of home that we offer here it is not entirely my decision to make. The IOA have a great deal of sway in the budget of running this place. Heck, I don't know if you realise how much it costs just to keep the lights lit down here, and you certainly wouldn't like the heating bill either. All that's before we even think about spinning the gate. It's a financial black hole every time we dial another world and quite frankly the IOA would shut any search and rescue down after a ludicrously short space of time if we start dialling out continuously. The gate on P7M-263…"

"Esperanza," Jack said suddenly, interrupting Hank in mid-sentence.

Hank frowned, trying to work out what Jack meant by this seemingly random interruption. "I beg your pardon, General O'Neill. Did you have something to add?"

"Esperanza," Jack said again. "The science bods got to name P8J-187 didn't they? Well I'm naming P7M-263. Esperanza, it means 'hope' in Spanish. Daniel taught me that."

Vala piped up at this. "Well well, General O'Neill. You truly are a man of many talents. You speak Spanish do you? I dabble a little myself, you know?"

"Si, señora bonita, (Yes, pretty lady,)" Jack replied cheekily. "Usted es muy hermoso. Quisiera comprarle una bebida. (You are very beautiful. Can I buy you a drink.) Er…Uno, Dos, Tres…no, I think that's about it. Esperanza, that was the point anyway."

"I like it," Vala agreed. Raising herself out of her chair she addressed the room, "I, Qetesh, proclaim that from this moment forth, the planet designated as P7M-263 will be ever known as Esperanza. Qetesh, has spoken and as such that which was spoken is true."

With a flick of her hand she sent her long, black hair cascading over her shoulder and surveyed the room as she retook her seat. No one quite knew where to look or what to say and for a brief moment the room fell quiet.

"Oookay," Jack broke the silence. "So, any way…back to business. Tents, sand, trees, don't touch the temple and there we have the basis of our rescue mission. How many MALPs are we allowed to requisition, General?"

"We?" Landry queried. "As in?"

"We." Jack said again. "Where's the confusion here Hank? We…Teal'c, Mitchell, myself, Miss Mal Doran here and anyone else you can spare for however long you can spare them. Now, how many MALPs are we allowed?"

Hank shook his head, he should have guessed that Jack would want to be in on the rescue mission. Everyone knew that even though the older General lived and worked in Washington he still thought of the original members of SG-1 as 'his kids' and visited them as often as he could. "I'm only requisitioning two MALP probes for the search and rescue and you can also take several FREDs to carry all your equipment. I know two MALPs doesn't sound enough but Doctor Lee has something equally useful, but much cheaper, that will do the job sufficiently enough for your needs."

"OK, I'll bite." Jack answered. "Bill, you got yourself a new toy?"

Bill walked to the corner of the room and opened the lid of a large plastic chest that Jack hadn't noticed before. He reached in and pulled out a cylindrical metal box with six large rubber wheels attached, along with something that looked suspiciously like a set of remote controls. He walked back to the table and carefully placed the wheeled device and the controls on the table.

"Meet MiniMALP," he announced proudly. "He can transmit both sound and picture back through the wormhole in the same way as his bigger brother and you can transmit voice messages through him as well. Because he's small he has the advantage of being light enough to travel across much softer ground than a standard sized MALP probe but obviously being smaller he has a much shorter range than a standard MALP. Personally, for the searching you need him to do I think he's ideal."

"Cool," Jack whistled. "You've not just developed this for us, now, have you?"

"No," Bill replied. "Initially we started developing them for the Atlantis project because as you know they regularly lose MALP probes by sending them to investigate planets that turn out to have orbital gates. MiniMALP costs a great deal less than his larger counterpart so therefore there's less of a financial drain if he doesn't come back."

"And how many do we have available at present?" Jack asked, half expecting the one on the desk to be a prototype and the only one available.

Bill looked extremely pleased with himself as he answered, "As of this morning we have thirty seven completed and another six awaiting the arrival of a small part from Canada later this week. For the purposes of the search you will be able to dial up the address of the planet that you want to search, send through a MiniMALP and search for any sign of Doctor Jackson and Colonel Carter. If you find nothing and it's safe to do so, you can send someone though before the wormhole closes down and they can collect the probe and bring it back with them. If the planet turns out to be dangerous or inhabited by hostile forces the probe can either be abandoned or parked somewhere unobtrusively until such a time that it can be safely retrieved."

"Well then, that's settled. When do we leave?" Jack asked brightly.

"Just as soon as all the equipment is packed up and ready to roll." Hank replied. "If we're going to run purely on MALP and MiniMALP surveys then minimal crew will be required once everything is set up on P7M-263." Jack coughed and Hank look at him in exasperation. "...once everything is set up on Esperanza. There are two teams of Marines standing by ready to assist in the assembly of the camp and SG-6 are available if you need them. I assume from what you've said that you're going along General O'Neill?"

"Certainly am." Jack replied. "Been a while since I went through the 'ol orifice but there's no way I'm not getting involved in this rescue. I've got leave owed to me and if necessary I'm gonna use it but for now I've got permission to not be in Washington for the next two weeks."

Vala leant over and whispered in Cam Mitchell's ear. "I still don't get why we're going to some apparent 'dustbowl' when we've got a perfectly good gate here. So what if it costs money to open it, we do it every day anyway."

"Yes, we do," Cam replied quietly. "But only a few times a day. The gate on Esperanza is a bog-standard gate complete with DHD and whatever endless power supply that runs them. Once we're set up we can dial out as many times as we feel fit with nothing to stop us apart from time. You got it now?"

Vala winked at him, "Ah, yep. I got it."

With a dramatic flick of her hair Vala started to rise to her feet. Cam immediately grabbed her by the belt and shoved her back down into her chair.

"Not yet," he hissed. "General's first - remember. And there's two of 'em today."

"Fine," she replied sulkily. "I'll wait if you insist. I just want to go and find my Daniel, that's all."

"I know," Cam told her. "Don't worry, we'll be searching soon. Think positive. We'll find 'em. They might be a bit battered and worse for wear but you've got to believe - we will find 'em."


	15. Chapter 15

~#~ (Chapter 15)

Sam was blissfully unaware of the world around her, having fallen asleep waiting for Daniel to awaken from the drugs that she'd pumped into him earlier that day. Daniel himself was lying on the ground, still propped onto his side by the two large SGC-issue packs that Sam had wedged behind him.

The first sign of awakening from Daniel was a subtle movement behind the archaeologist's eyelids. A gentle fluttering of those eyelids followed and eventually two slightly glazed, blue eyes came into view as the eyelids were finally persuaded to open.

The day had become overcast with deep purple clouds obscuring the two suns in the sky. This helped Daniel in respect that his eyes had become rather photosensitive due to the concussion he'd suffered when hitting the DHD sometime the night before.

Daniel found his vision impaired and blinked several times to bring it back to more it's usual myopic fuzziness. 'No glasses,' he thought vaguely.

Blinking again, Daniel realised that not only was he lying on a grassy floor, but a very grubby and extremely pale Samantha Carter was lying on the ground in front of him. His team-mate appeared to be deeply asleep and her facial muscles twitched from time to time.

As he watched another spasm run across her face Daniel wondered if Sam was in pain. He tried to think back to see if he could remember her getting hurt in the last few days but he found his short term memories to be a jumbled mess and he simply didn't have the energy to attempt to sort through them.

Slowly, Daniel tried to move his head to look around for the rest of the team but soon realised it was a bad idea to do so. Shooting pains shot from his neck, across his shoulder, down his arm and curled themselves into his right hand. Tears sprang into his eyes and he let out a gasp at the sudden and unexpected pain. Instinctively he tried to use his left hand to support his now throbbing right arm but realised the position he was lying in effectively blocked the movement he needed to perform such a task. His left forearm was free but he found his upper arm had become wedged underneath his torso when he'd been rolled on his side. 'Come to think about it', he wondered 'why am I lying like this anyway? It's not my chosen sleeping position and…where the hell are we?'

Being extremely mindful that he didn't move his neck at all, and making no attempt to move his right arm, Daniel carefully inched his left arm out from underneath his body. He found that he had tingles all over his extremities as he moved and now he thought about it, it seemed as if his usually super-fast mind was clogged with molasses. 'Morphine', he assumed.

Now that his left arm was free, Daniel carefully catalogued the various injuries that he could reach without causing himself any more of the mind-altering pain that he'd experienced just a few minutes before. During his self examination the archaeologist discovered that his right arm had been splinted, bandaged and secured to his chest by means of another bandage that ran from his right shoulder to his left hip and, Daniel thought, was presumably secured somewhere behind his back.

Next, he found the bandage around his head. From his delicate prodding of the dressing he could feel that blood had soaked through it before starting to congeal. He tentatively pressed at the uncovered areas of his forehead and scalp and grimaced as his fingers came away covered in a disgusting combination of still-slick partially-congealed blood, gravel, grass and an awful lot of grit.

Sam chose that moment to cry out quietly in her sleep. Daniel carefully wiped the blood from his fingers onto his T-shirt and gently reached out to stroke her face, intending to soothe the obviously distressed woman.

It was testament to Sam's state of mind when the most tentative of touches to her cheek caused her to wake with a start and scoot backwards away from Daniel as fast as she was able.

She didn't get all that far away before she came properly awake and sat up, tucked her knees up to her chest and panted heavily with her forehead resting on her knees.

After a moment she had calmed enough to release her face from it's hiding place and looked up to see what had startled her. As she raised her head she found herself looking straight into Daniel's wide blue eyes. He'd frozen when Sam had fled from him and his left hand was still extended towards her.

As she looked in his direction he whispered her name as he flexed his fingers in invitation for her to come back to him. "Sam."

"Daniel," she cried out and launched herself towards him. Grabbing his outstretched left hand with her right one, she slid back down to the floor so she was at eye to eye with her team-mate. "Oh God, it's good to see you awake," she said breathlessly. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I've been hit by a bus," he admitted quietly.

Cradling his outstretched hand to her chest with her right arm, she stroked the side of his face with the fingertips of her left hand. "Not quite a bus, more like a…er…DHD," she replied.

Daniel looked puzzled. "Er, Sam," he said. "DHD's don't move."

"No, I know that, silly. But you do…er…did. I mean, as far as I can gather we…you and me that is…we, er…kinda came through the gate at quite a rate of knots, and you…well, it looks like you hit the DHD on the way out."

Sam's disjointed answer worried Daniel. "As far as you can gather?" he asked, concern causing the unbandaged part of his forehead to crumple. "You OK?"

"Yeah, I was…I was out cold for a while too." Sam paused for a moment to gather her thoughts, "Just…just about scared me stupid when I came to and found you c…crumpled behind the DHD."

"I'm sorry, Sam," he told her softly, wrapping the fingers of his still-captured left hand around the wrist of the arm that Sam was hugging it with and gently squeezing.

Sam tightened her grip on his hand and looked earnestly into his eyes. "Daniel, you…you have nothing to be sorry for. If it wasn't for you coming back for me I'd probably be dead by now. If not dead then at the mercy of Christ knows whose Jaffa."

Furrows appeared in Daniel's forehead once again at this. "S…Sam, I don't know what happened. I don't remember. Everything's all mixed up. I don't even know where we are, let alone how we got here."

Sam gasped, "Oh, Daniel. I'm sorry. I didn't think. I'm not surprised you're confused - you've been so bashed about since we left home…er, yesterday."

"Yesterday, wow, is that really all it was?" Daniel commented. "Incredible how fast everything can go to sh!t isn't it?"

Sam let out a shallow chuckle. "That it is my friend, that it is. Do you want a quick rundown on everything I know then?"

"Please," he replied, glad to see that now Sam was fully awake and had something to focus her mind upon, she was more alert and her speech had returned to more-or-less normal.

Sam quickly briefed Daniel on the situation as she knew it reluctantly informing him that the DHD seemed to be irreparable and also gave him a little background knowledge when she realised he couldn't really piece together the details of the original mission to P8J-187.

Once Daniel knew the basics Sam explained to him that he'd hurt his head, shoulder and right arm when he'd hit the DHD. She told him how she'd discovered the broken arm once she started to reduce his shoulder and apologised profusely for not discovering the fact it was broken before then and also explained that she'd been forced to sedate him even though he was clearly suffering from a concussion.

"I wondered why everything was so fuzzy," Daniel said. "I didn't hurt you, did I? Sam? Please tell me I didn't."

"No, Daniel. You didn't hurt me. I was more worried about you hurting yourself rather than that you were going to hurt me." Sam knew this wasn't strictly true but wanted to save Daniel from the guilt trip he'd almost certainly go on if he knew that Sam had been afraid of the usually gentle archaeologist.

"What'd you hit me with anyway?" he asked suddenly. "Morphine?"

"With a head injury?" Sam squeaked. "Daniel, I might not be a medical Doctor but I know better than that. I dare say Carolyn could have risked something of the sort with a heck of a load of monitoring equipment around you but in case you haven't noticed there's a distinct lack of any medical facilities around here."

"Hey, hey, it's OK," he assured her. "You did your best in an awful situation and don't forget you weren't in the best of condition yourself. What was it then? Diazepam?"

"Yes, that's the one. Diazep…" Sam stopped and her eyes opened wide as she suddenly realised what she'd done. "Oh God, you're not supposed to have that are you? I'm sorry. I guess I didn't think, I just grabbed the first sedative I came across."

"Don't worry, Sam. It's just I'm…fuzzy, that's all. Diazepam's done strange things to me since I got back from Shyla's planet. The Fentanyl agrees with me better but under the circumstances I'm not going to complain. I obviously needed something then and there but Sam, you're going to have to excuse me if I'm not quite all there for the next few days."

"Oh, I can handle a confused Daniel Jackson, just as long as I'm not here on my own," Sam replied quickly, bringing Daniel's hand up and pressing a gentle kiss onto his knuckles. "We've been here for hours and no-one's even come to investigate what happened last night. The explosion in the DHD must've made a hell of a noise and anyone for miles around would have surely come to find out what had caused it."

"So, you're thinking there's no-one around because no-one's come to look?" Daniel queried. "Makes sense I suppose. Maybe the people here are nomadic travellers like we've seen sometimes. Or perhaps they only come past this way once or twice a year - we've seen that before several times as well. And don't forget, everyone at the SGC will be looking for us too."

"I know," Sam said glumly. "But…but there's something I haven't told you yet…it's…well I don't know how much hope we can expect from the SGC."

"Why?" Daniel was mystified by Sam's pessimism. The SGC wouldn't just give up on two members of SG-1 without a fight. "They'll assume we're alive for the moment, at least if they don't have proof to the contrary. We need to stay positive, Sam. They will find us. The gate's malfunctioned before and we've always got each other back…eventually."

"Yeah, I know," Sam said, not really believing her own words. "But…no-one's really ever been stranded this far from home before due to a gate malfunction. In fact I only know of a couple of hundred specially selected people who've travelled this far through the gate intentionally, let alone by accident. General O'Neill's the only person I know to have gone any further via the gate network."

"Sam, what aren't you telling me?" Daniel asked. "You almost sound like you know where we are."

"Not exactly," Sam admitted. "I hate to tell you this Daniel, but currently we're probably nearer to Atlantis than Earth. Daniel, I don't think we're in the Milky Way any more. I'm pretty sure we're somewhere in the Pegasus Galaxy."


	16. Chapter 16

~#~ (Chapter 16)

"Pegasus," Daniel exclaimed. "What? How?"

"I don't know," Sam admitted. "The only thing I can think is that something happened to the DHD on P8J-187 and that the wormhole got diverted. I just hope Cam got back safely. He wasn't that far ahead of us and if the wormhole jumped with him enroute…" Sam shuddered visibly and subconsciously tightened her grip on Daniel's hand.

"Hey now, positive thinking remember?" Daniel chided. "Mitchell's fine and I'd bet any money that Jack's already at the SGC giving him hell. I sure wouldn't like to be on the wrong end of that tirade - Jack can be frightening when he gets going!"

"He sure can," Sam chuckled. "Poor Cam!"

"Yeah, poor Cam," Daniel agreed, unable to stop the smirk that broke out on his face. "Don't worry, Sam. They will find us. You've just got to keep remembering that."

"OK," she replied quietly. "I guess we'll just have to wait for them. We need to stay near the gate for the time being, although we do need to have a look around. We don't have a clue what the wildlife's like here, we're both covered in blood and could be attracting all sorts of the wrong type of attention. And…and what the climate's like? So far this morning - while we've been here I mean - the weather has been quite pleasant but who knows how long that will last. I wonder what time of year it is - that'll make a big difference…and what effect do the two suns have on things? We don't know how cold it's going to get at night. Last night was obviously mild but we might have just been lucky with that, who knows what it'll be like tonight. We've got no tents or shelter to speak of so we'll have to look for a cave or something where we can get some protection from the elements. We could base ourselves there but wherever we end up it can't be too far away from the gate."

"Sam," Daniel squeezed her hand to break into her sudden rambling. "Sam, shh. We'll deal with things as and when they happen. If it's cold then we'll light a fire, you never know some friendly natives might spot it and come to our aid." He didn't feel the need to state the obvious that unfriendly natives might see it and do completely the opposite. "I agree we need to stay within easy reach of the gate but right now there's no need to panic and go running for cover. Not that I think either of us are in any state to be running anywhere at the moment. Your leg's not exactly in A1 condition and…hell Sam, I don't even know how I'm going to get up, let alone whether I can walk."

"I know that." Sam let out a strangled sound. "I suppose first we need to try and get you sitting up then you need to drink. You've lost a lot of blood and are bound to be dehydrated. After that we'll take it from there. Agreed?"

"Agreed," Daniel replied. Suddenly he remembered the pain he'd caused himself by trying to look around when he awoke. He realised he hadn't moved since then and sucked in a deep breath before continuing, "Sam, this is going to hurt isn't it?"

Sam nodded her head slightly, "I'm sorry Daniel, but I don't dare give you anything else yet. I've already given you the Diazepam when I shouldn't have, along with the…er…muscle relaxant that I…oh…that I may not have told you about..." Sam's words trailed off as she thought things through in her head. "As far as I know your shoulder is back in right but I can't tell if there's any muscle damage or…something worse, going on in there. I don't want to knock you out again either or we'll never get away from the gate."

"It's OK, Sam. I understand." Daniel said softly. "Let's just get this done, shall we?"

Sam lay still and quiet for a moment, staring into Daniel's eyes as she thought things over. She then nodded her head and rolled on her back with a quiet, "'K".

She let go of his hand and rested it gently on the floor between them and sat up slowly. Remembering the panicked look on Daniel's face earlier that day when he had thought she was going to leave him she was careful to stay in his line of sight at all times and was pleased to see his eyes following her every move. After running her fingers through her disordered hair several times she scrambled up and crouched in front of her prone team-mate.

As she'd put all her thoughts into Daniel's welfare since she'd awoken Sam had momentarily forgotten her own aches and pains. Once she was upright she remembered her injured leg and breathed a huge sigh of relief when she realised it hadn't objected too much to the movement.

Daniel immediately picked up on the sigh. "Sam, you doing OK?"

She nodded and rested her hand on his waist in a comforting manner. "I'm fine."

Realising her sigh had been one of relief and not pain, Daniel rolled his eyes. Knowing that Sam had moved in preparation for sitting him up and understanding that as soon as he began to move, his body was going to rebel in the most painful way, the injured man decided to play for a little time. The hint of a grin appeared on his face and he said, "Thought that was my line." He paused for effect and then continued, "…and now I can see just how it feels on the receiving end of it. You look like you need to shower for a week and then sleep away the week after that."

All too aware of Daniel's stalling tactics, Sam responded with a little banter of her own. "Well thank you, Casanova," she replied, gently slapping his hip to acknowledge his light-hearted jibing. "You're no oil painting yourself at this precise moment I'll have you know. Red is sooo not your colour." She looked down at Daniel and gently stroked her hand back and forth across the hip that she's just slapped.

After a few moments she dissolved into a fit of giggles which had Daniel wondering just how much morphine the now-dizzy-blonde still had in her system.

"What?" he asked, worried when Sam continued to giggle.

Sam forced herself to calm down and smirked at Daniel. "Well, I was just thinking about how much the nurses *love* to give you sponge baths when you're in the infirmary."

"Yeeah," Daniel replied, drawing out the word. "So Jack's always told me anyway…what of it?"

"Weeell," she replied, dragging the word out in the same way Daniel had moments before. "There ain't no nurses here Doctor Jackson."

Daniel fell silent for a moment and, with a twinkle in her eye, Sam watched him slowly trying to work out what she was talking about. She knew the instant he'd figured it out because forehead unscrunched and his eyes went wide as saucers.

"Noo," he cried. "Sam, you can't. That would be…well…just…wrong."

"We'll see," she chuckled. "Just how do you think you're going to get even half way clean with only one arm? Hmmm?"

"I'll manage," he said. "I'm very resourceful like that."

"Hmm, well as I said, we'll see. Personally I don't think there's a hope in hell's chance of me getting that T-shirt off you in one piece let alone you managing it yourself." Sam slapped his hip again. "Anyway I know what you're up to Doctor Jackson and that's enough stalling. We really need to get you off the ground and at least partly mobile. If Teal'c was here I'm sure he'd carry you but he's not and you're too heavy for me so you'll have to walk."

"Bloody cheek," Daniel shot back. "First you tell me I'm not fit to look at, now you're telling me I'm fat. Pick on the defenceless, injured guy why don't you? I thought you Air Force types were better than that. Oh yeah, and while you're at it…stop hitting me. I don't think I like this brutal side of you Samantha Carter." The grin on his face counteracted the apparent harshness of his words. Sam and Daniel had known each other for long enough to know when the other was joking, even in the somewhat drugged state that each of them had found themselves in.

Sam raised her hand to give Daniel's hip another slap but resisted the temptation and replied, "Well, this 'brutal' Sam Carter thinks that a certain archaeologist is stalling for time again and is going to get him up and moving, whether he likes it or not."

Daniel closed his eyes for a moment and mumbled, just loud enough for Sam to hear, "Busted."

Sam nodded her head, "Oh yes, you are - in more ways than one. You ready to do this?"

Daniel winced, "Do I have the option of saying 'no'?"

"No," Sam replied firmly. "Now, we're going to do this, and we're going to do it now. We'll get into the trees and even if we can't find anywhere better straight away they'll offer us a little shelter. Then we're going to light a fire and ideally find a water source otherwise we'll be trying to wash in our drinking water and we really need to save that for…well…drinking."

Giving Daniel no more time for stalling, Sam knelt up and leant over him. With one hand she removed the packs from behind his back and with her other hand she supported his weight to stop him making any sudden movements.

Once the packs were removed she rolled Daniel onto his back as slowly and carefully as she possibly could, aware that she was causing him pain. She then scooted up to his head and found that his eyes were tightly shut and he had wrinkles of pain clearly visible on his face. Sam stroked his hair and spoke nonsense quietly to him in an attempt to soothe away some of the pain.

She patiently sat and petted him and after a while was rewarded by a lessening in the tension lines around his eyes. Eventually his eyes opened and Daniel lifted his left arm to grasp at the hand stroking his hair.

"Hi," Sam murmured, stilling her petting and closing her fingers around Daniel's hand. "How're you doing?"

"Ow," came the succinct reply, followed by a quick exhalation of breath. "Better now though."

"That's good," Sam replied, both relieved the pain had eased and guilty that she was going to have to cause him more pain before they were out of the clearing. "Ready for stage two?"

Daniel met her eyes and she knew he understood what needed to happen. "Again, no but let's give it a go."

Sam rested her palm on the side of his face. "I'm going to lift you as best I can. If you try and dig in with your feet we'll see if we can sit you up against the DHD. OK? On three."

"'K," Daniel replied, biting down hard on his bottom lip in readiness for moving again. Sam hooked one arm under Daniel's left armpit, got a good grip on his the jacket covering his uninjured left shoulder and slowly counted to three.

On three she lifted with all her strength and urged Daniel to scoot towards the DHD.

Daniel pushed up with his feet and slid a couple of inches backwards. Sam counted to three once more then lifted him again and mentally cheered when he moved again.

Before she got the chance to count again she realised Daniel was trying to speak through gritted teeth. She thought she heard him hiss, "Sam, stop."

She let go of his jacket and leant down until she was level with his face. "What?"

Though he was trying hard to control his breathing he managed to gasp out, "all…all...all the way up, S-Sam. G-Get it all ov…ov…ver in one g-go. D-Don't want to have…have to do this again."

"You sure?" she asked, even though she could see Daniel's point. Every time they moved him in any way he was in excruciating pain from his right arm and shoulder. If they could get him completely upright in just one manoeuvre then it was another round of blinding pain that the archaeologist wouldn't have to go through.

Daniel nodded briefly and Sam took charge of his left side again. It took another couple of attempts and more than a few swear words but eventually Daniel's scooting turned to scrabbling and the two of them finally made it to their feet.

Once they were upright Daniel found himself squashed tightly in between the DHD and Sam. On a different day he'd have been embarrassed to find the Air Force Colonel's lithe body pressed against him but on this occasion he was grateful for Sam's foresight into his more-than-predictable light-headedness. He was pretty certain that if she moved away any time soon he'd very quickly find himself back on the floor and subconsciously wrapped his left arm around her to keep her close. Sam's right arm slipped around his back and they clung together as they caught their breaths.


	17. Chapter 17

~#~ (Chapter 17)

The pair stayed clung together long after their breathing had returned to normal. Being very much alike in many ways Sam and Daniel hung on to one another, each silently reflecting on the situation they had found themselves in and sending thanks to whichever divine spirit was watching over them that they were alive and not completely alone.

Partly due to their superior intelligence levels and partially because of situations within their childhoods, both Sam and Daniel had often found themselves alone. Sam had spent a lot of her youth either on her own or in adult company, due to both her military upbringing and her love of all things science. The young Daniel, having lost his parents at such a tender age, had retreated into himself and had allowed no-one, adult or child alike, to get close to him for well over a decade.

This being said, a connection had been made between the pair of them almost as soon as they had met. Each had recognised a kindred spirit of sorts within the other and the bond between them had grown steadily stronger over the nine years or so that the team had been together. They could often finish one another's sentences and frequently seemed to be able to tell what the other was thinking. Both of them knew that at that moment, what each of them needed was to know that the other was alive and, at least relatively, intact.

~#~

After a short while longer, Sam gently pulled herself out of Daniel's embrace and, while still leaning heavily on him, examined the archaeologist's face in an appraisingly manner.

She slowly reached up, cupped his face in her hand and softly, with her thumb, wiped the rapidly drying tears from his cheeks. Only having one working arm Daniel was unable to return the favour to Sam but shakily raised his left arm and ran his fingers through her hair, both trying to gently work out some of the tangles and grounding Sam to his presence at the same time.

"Let's not do that again," he whispered quietly. "At least not anytime soon."

Sam let out a wry smile and adjusted her position slightly so that her face was more level with Daniel's and gently she rested her right cheek on his. "I'm sorry," she confessed as she rubbed her cheek softly against his. "How are you feeling now?"

Sam pulled back and watched Daniel as he frowned and he took stock of his various injuries. "I'm thinking the bus may have been downgraded to an SUV at the moment but I have a feeling I might have to revise that once we have to move again. I assume the next plan of action is to find cover of some sort?"

Sam nodded slowly. "Plan of action is get to the tree-line. After that…well we'll see when we get there."

~#~

After making sure Daniel was stable enough that he wouldn't take a nosedive when she let go of him, Sam reached down and retrieved her canteen from beside the packs. She unscrewed the flask and handed it to Daniel who soon discovered that it was virtually impossible for him to drink the water unaided. Anytime he made anything more than a slow, careful movement with the upper half of his left arm his right shoulder went into spasm. Sam therefore helped him drink his fill before taking the flask and taking a long drink herself.

~#~

When they'd finished drinking, Sam stood and looked around the clearing. She could clearly see the trail of broken grass that she had created when she'd dragged herself into the trees earlier in the day and decided that as she'd not come across too many obstacles earlier that it was as good a route as any for them to travel into the woods. She pulled the packs out of the way and leant them against the DHD on the opposite side of Daniel to the direction that they would be taking.

Once she'd finished she looked up at Daniel who was quietly leaning against the DHD watching her. "You OK?" she asked.

"Kinda," he replied. "Not looking forward to this though. It's is gonna hurt, isn't it?"

"I'm sorry," Sam replied quietly. "But we can't stay here, Daniel. You know that."

Daniel sighed. "I know...it's just…I…you…hurt…" As Daniel's speech tapered off he slowly waved his left arm back and forth between Sam and himself, wincing as his shoulder reminded him that it wasn't a good idea to make such a movement.

Even though the archaeologist couldn't finish his sentence, Sam was able to understand him.

She caught hold of his hand, stilled it and gently rubbed the back of it with her thumb. "Daniel, you're not going to hurt me and we'll take it as slow as we need to. We'll find somewhere to stop just inside the tree-line where you can still see the gate and then I'll come back and get the packs. Assuming it looks safe once we stop I promise I'll get some more drugs into you and we'll stay put for a while…assuming no-one turns up in any way shape or…er…form."

"Huh," Daniel huffed. "There's no saying that anyone who turns up's going to be friendly anyway…whether they'd help us or hinder us? That's the way it usually turns out isn't it, Sam? That the aliens turn out to be oh-so-friendly and have reeeally great healing technology that they're surprisingly willing to share?"

"Oh Daniel," Sam sighed. "Sarcasm does not become you. On a normal day you'd never normally even think of turning to it. I'd have you know, Doctor Jackson, that if your Diazepam addled brain was working at even half of it's normal speed you'd have realised that the potential for meeting either friendly or unfriendly aliens is exactly the reason why we're about to head for the trees and some sort of cover. We're equivalently sitting ducks out here in the middle of this clearing and would stand no chance whatsoever if we were to try and defend ourselves."

Daniel nodded vaguely and Sam gripped his chin and forced him to look at her. "Now, have you finished stalling?"

"I…I…" Daniel stammered unsure as to whether Sam was teasing him or not and he pulled his head aware and dropped his gaze to the ground.

The Colonel immediately felt bad when she saw that she'd upset Daniel. The reminder that her usually intellectually superior team-mate was still not completely cognisant saddened her immensely.

"Let's get this over with," she said and gently slipped her right arm under Daniel's left shoulder and around his back to carefully grip his ribs below his injured shoulder and arm. "We're going to be heading off that way," she said, pointing in the direction that she had taken earlier. "And we'll take as much time as we need to, I promise."

~#~

Daniel grimaced as Sam helped him move but slowly they got moving and set off across the clearing towards the trees.


End file.
